President Donald Trump has filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal’s parent companies News Corp and Dow Jones following the newspaper’s publication of the president’s alleged birthday letter to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Miami targets Murdoch and News Corp executive Robert Thomson as well as the two WSJ journalists whose bylines appeared on the story.
The newspaper published his alleged 50th birthday greeting to Epstein from 2003, which was described as including a sexually suggestive drawing and a birthday wish that says “may every day be another wonderful secret.”
The defendants “failed to attach the letter, failed to attach the alleged drawing, failed to show proof that President Trump authored or signed any such letter, and failed to explain how this purported letter was obtained,” according to the lawsuit.
“The reason for those failures is because no authentic letter or drawing exists,” the complaint claims.
The lawsuit accuses defendants of having “concocted” the story to “malign” the president.
"We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit,” a spokesperson for Dow Jones said in a statement.
The Independent has requested comment from News Corp.
“Hundreds of millions of people have already viewed the false and defamatory statements published by Defendants. And given the timing of the Defendants’ article, which shows their malicious intent behind it, the overwhelming financial and reputational harm suffered by President Trump will continue to multiply,” according to the complaint.
On his Truth Social account, the president said he had filed a “POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS ‘article’ in the useless ‘rag’ that is.”
“This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of your favorite President, ME, but also in order to continue standing up for ALL Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media,” Trump wrote. “I hope Rupert and his ‘friends’ are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case. “
Following the publication of the story on Thursday night, the president fired off several lawsuit threats against his once-former ally, whose massive News Corp media conglomerate owns WSJ as well as Fox News andThe New York Post, among other titles.
“I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his ‘pile of garbage’ newspaper,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social on Friday morning. “That will be an interesting experience!!!”
The president has denied ever writing such a greeting to Epstein or even drawing “pictures of women,” though the allegations arrive in the middle of his administration’s attempts to dismiss the so-called Epstein files as a Democratic “hoax” after his Department of Justice announced it found no evidence to support conspiracy theories about the sex trafficking case.
The Justice Department’s attempt to draw the investigation to a close has renewed scrutiny into the president’s relationship with Epstein, who was accused of sexually abusing dozens of minors before he was found dead in his jail cell in 2019.
“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday night. “These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper.”
Roughly one hour earlier, in a lengthier post, Trump said he “personally” warned Murdoch against publishing the story, “and, if they print it, they will be sued,” he said.
“Mr Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so,” Trump said.
The notice on the federal court docket in Florida appeared moments before Attorney General Pam Bondi and deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche filed a motion in federal court in Manhattan asking a judge to unseal grand jury testimony in Epstein’s case in an apparent attempt to quell concerns from the president’s allies that the Department of Justice was participating in a cover-up.
The release of that testimony — which amounts to only a fraction of the evidence in the so-called “Epstein files” — would still need approval from a judge, who must navigate strict rules surrounding grand jury secrecy and protections for witnesses and victims.
That could take some time.
The administration has declined to release a separate and likely much larger tranche of evidence that was mentioned in an index in what the administration labelled “phase one” of the release of evidence earlier this year, when far-right influencers were invited to the White House to receive binders of mostly previously released documents in the case.
Trump has routinely threatened legal action against media outlets over unflattering or antagonistic coverage, and his lawsuits against ABC and CBS for monumental sums resulted in controversial settlements that have sparked fears among press freedom advocates that publishers are only emboldening the president’s chilling message to the media.
Now Murdoch has similarly found himself in the line of fire. His Fox News empire was accused of promoting bogus conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election to promote Trump’s campaign. The network ultimately settled that defamation lawsuit, which was brought by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems, for a record-breaking $787 million.
