Search Articles
(CN) — President Donald Trump sued conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the Dow Jones Company on Friday over a Wall Street Journal article detailing a bawdy letter Trump supposedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday.
The suit was filed in the Southern District of Florida — where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is located and U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s district — and lists Dow Jones & Company, News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson and Wall Street Journal reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo as defendants.
In the lawsuit, Trump claims Safdar and Palazzo wrongly passed off “as fact” that Trump wrote the 2003 letter, despite not attaching the letter or a supposed drawing, failing to show proof Trump wrote the letter or explain how they obtained it.
“The reason for those failures is because no authentic letter or drawing exists,” Trump said. “Defendants concocted this story to malign President Trump’s character and integrity and deceptively portray him in a false light.”
Trump, represented by Alejandro Brito of Brito PLLC, seeks $10 billion in damages from the defendants.
Suing in his individual capacity, Trump claims the reporters’ story was published despite “glaring failures” in journalistic ethics and accurate reporting standards. He also accuses Murdoch and Thomson of directing the story to be published nonetheless.
“Hundreds of millions of people have already viewed the false and defamatory statements published by defendants,” Trump claims in the lawsuit. “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.”
Trump has denied writing the letter — claiming on Truth Social that he called Murdoch, who told him he would “take care of it” — and said he would beat the “once great Wall Street Journal.”
“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein. These are not my words, not the way I talk,” Trump wrote Thursday. “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.”
Trump has come under increasing fire from his conservative base over his apparent reversal on a campaign promise to unseal the Epstein sex trafficking case files. On Thursday he denounced claims that he was on a client list as the “Epstein Hoax.”
According to a July 6 memo, the Justice Department determined, after an “exhaustive review” of Epstein’s case via searches of over 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence, that there was no “incriminating client list.”
“There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions,” the memo states. “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
According to the Journal, Trump drew an image of a naked woman and signed his first name below her waist “mimicking pubic hair.”
The Journal did not include the letter itself in the article.
A Dow Jones spokesperson defended the veracity of the Wall Street Journal’s reporting in an emailed statement.
“We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit,” the spokesperson said.
As part of his effort to assuage the concerns of his supporters, Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday to begin unsealing grand jury transcripts in both Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal cases.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former member of Trump’s legal defense team, filed the motion to unseal in the Southern District of New York earlier Friday.
“Public officials, lawmakers, pundits and ordinary citizens remain deeply interested and concerned about the Epstein matter,” Blanche wrote. “Indeed, other jurists have released grand jury transcripts after concluding that Epstein’s case qualifies as a matter of public concern.”
If the case manages to reach the Supreme Court, it could provide the conservatives on the court an opportunity to narrow or overturn the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan . In that case, the court unanimously ruled that in order to bring a successful libel or defamation claim, the plaintiff must show the defendant knew a statement was false or was reckless in deciding to publish without determining its accuracy.
The 1964 case set a high bar for public figures to succeed in libel suits against news organizations.
Justice Clarence Thomas, a George H.W. Bush appointee, has repeatedly indicated his belief the high court should reconsider the decision, writing in a 2023 concurrence that it lets news organizations “cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.”
“I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his ‘pile of garbage’ newspaper, the WSJ,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday. “That will be an interesting experience.”
Follow @Ryan_KnappySubscribe to our free newsletters
Our weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.