President Donald Trump filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the parent companies of The Wall Street Journal, News Corp and Dow Jones, following the publication of an alleged birthday letter from the president to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Miami, targets Murdoch and Robert Thomson, an executive of News Corp, as well as two Wall Street Journal journalists whose names were cited in the article. The newspaper published the alleged congratulatory message to Epstein on his 50th birthday in 2003, which supposedly included a sexually suggestive drawing and a birthday wish that stated, ‘may each day be another wonderful secret.’ The defendants ‘did not attach the letter, did not attach the alleged drawing, did not provide evidence that President Trump was the author or signatory of such letter, and did not explain how this alleged letter was obtained,’ according to the lawsuit. ‘The reason for these shortcomings is that no authentic letter or drawing exists,’ asserts the lawsuit. The court documents accuse the defendants of having ‘concocted’ the story to ‘defame’ the president.
«Hundreds of millions of people have already seen the false and defamatory statements published by the defendants. And given the timing of the defendants’ article, which demonstrates their malicious intent behind it, the overwhelming financial and reputational damage suffered by President Trump will continue to multiply,» according to the lawsuit.
On his Truth Social account, the president stated that he had filed a «POWERFUL LAWSUIT against all those involved in the publication of the false, malicious, defamatory, and GARBAGE article in the useless ‘tabloid’ that it is.» «This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of your favorite president, ME, but also to continue defending ALL Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive misconduct of the tabloid media,» Trump wrote. «I hope Rupert and his ‘friends’ are looking forward to the many hours of statements and testimony they will have to provide in this case,» he concluded.
Following the publication of the news on Thursday night, the president issued several threat of lawsuits against his former ally, whose vast media conglomerate, News Corp, owns the Wall Street Journal, as well as Fox News and the New York Post, among other titles. «I am eager to get Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his ‘pseudonymous’ newspaper,» Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on Friday morning. «It will be an interesting experience!» While the president denies having written such a greeting to Epstein or even having made «drawings of women,» the allegations add to the context of his administration’s attempts to dismiss the so-called Epstein files as a Democratic «hoax» after his Department of Justice announced that it had found no evidence supporting the conspiracy theories surrounding the sex trafficking case.
The Justice Department’s attempt to conclude the investigation has reignited scrutiny regarding the president’s relationship with Epstein, who was accused of sexually abusing dozens of minors before being found dead in his jail cell in 2019.»The Wall Street Journal published a FALSE letter, supposedly to Epstein,» Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday night. «Those are not my words nor my manner of speaking. Furthermore, I do not make drawings. I told Rupert Murdoch that this was all a scam and not to publish that false news. But he did, and now I am going to sue him and his petty newspaper.»Approximately an hour earlier, in a longer post, Trump stated that he had warned Murdoch «personally» against publishing the story, saying, «and if they publish it, they will be sued.»»Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it, but obviously, he had no power to do so,» Trump commented.
Murdoch, a former ally of Trump, is now at the center of another massive defamation lawsuit against the president, who has issued several legal threats against publishers and media outlets and has reached substantial settlements with ABC and CBS following his lawsuits against those networks (AFP via Getty Images).
The notice in the federal court file in Florida emerged moments before Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche filed a motion in a federal court in Manhattan asking a judge to unseal the grand jury testimony in the Epstein case. It represents an attempt to quell concerns among the president’s allies that the Department of Justice was engaging in a cover-up. The disclosure of such testimony, which represents only a portion of the evidence contained in the so-called ‘Epstein files,’ would still require a judge’s approval, who must adhere to the strict standards governing grand jury secrecy and the protection of witnesses and victims. The process could be lengthy.
The administration has refused to make public another block of evidence, likely much larger, that was mentioned in an index of what the administration termed ‘phase one’ of the evidence delivery earlier this year. On that occasion, they invited far-right influencers to the White House to receive folders with documents related to the case, most of which had already been published.
Trump constantly threatens to take legal action against media outlets for unflattering or antagonistic coverage. In fact, his lawsuits against ABC and CBS for monumental sums resulted in controversial settlements that have raised concerns among defenders of press freedom that editors may only embolden the chilling message the president sends to the media.
Rupert Murdoch, the media magnate of the United States, will have to respond to Trump’s lawsuit.
Now Murdoch is also in the spotlight. His Fox News empire has been accused of promoting false conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 elections to further Trump’s campaign. Ultimately, the network reached a settlement in the defamation lawsuit brought by the voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems for a record sum of 787 million dollars.
