.jpg?width=1200&auto=webp&trim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0&ssl=1 "Trump files lawsuit against Murdoch, WSJ and NewsCorp over Epstein birthday card expose")
Donald Trump has filed a 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.
A complaint to be filed in federal court in Ft. Lauderdale was not immediately available. A case summary indicates the president is suing Murdoch as well as the two WSJ journalists whose bylines appeared on the story.
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 and the New York Post, among other titles.
The newspaper published his alleged 50th birthday greeting to Epstein in 2003, which was described as including a sexually suggestive drawing and a birthday wish that says “may every day be another wonderful secret.”
“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.
