U.S. President Donald Trump leaves after signing the “GENIUS Act” into law during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House July 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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President Donald Trump on Friday followed through on his threat to sue media mogul Rupert Murdoch after his Wall Street Journal published an article saying that Trump sent his then-friend Jeffrey Epstein a “bawdy” letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
Trump, who angrily denies writing the letter, is seeking damages of no less than $10 billion in the lawsuit alleging defamation.
Named as defendants in the suit in federal court in the Southern District of Florida are Murdoch, his company News Corp and its CEO Robert Thomson, the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones & Co., and the two reporters who wrote the article published Thursday evening.
A Dow Jones spokesperson sent the following statement to CNBC: “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”
The suit comes as Trump faces growing pressure to have the Justice Department release its investigative files about Epstein, who killed himself in August 2019 after being arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.
The Journal’s article said that the letter purportedly written by Trump to Epstein in 2003 was among documents reviewed by criminal investigators who ultimately built criminal cases against Epstein and his convicted procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, who reportedly solicited the letter from the president.
“We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS “article” in the useless “rag” that is, The Wall Street Journal,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday.
Former Executive Chairman of Fox Corp Rupert Murdoch listens as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on February 03, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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The suit says that, “Defendants Khadeeja Safdar and Joseph Palazzolo co-authored and published an article largely focused on President Trump that falsely claimed that he authored, drew, and signed a card to wish the late — and utterly disgraced — Jeffrey Epstein a happy fiftieth birthday.”
“To attempt and inextricably link President Trump to Epstein, Defendants Safdar and Palazzolo falsely claim that the salacious language of the letter is contained within a hand-drawn naked woman, which was created with a heavy marker,” the suit alleges.
“Worse, Defendants Safdar and Palazzolo falsely represent as fact that President Trump drew the naked woman’s breasts and signed his name ‘Donald’ below her waist, ‘mimicking pubic hair.’ “
“Despite the glaring failures in journalistic ethics and standards of accurate reporting, Defendants Dow Jones and News Corp — at the direction of Defendants Murdoch and Thomson — published to the world the false, defamatory, and malignant statements authored by” the reporters, the suit says.
Trump earlier Friday posted on Truth Social about the accusation, saying, “I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his ‘pile of garbage’ newspaper, the WSJ. That will be an interesting experience!!!”