WASHINGTON — President Trump sued the publisher of The Wall Street Journal for $10 billion over an allegedly “fake” and “defamatory” article that claimed he sent a lewd letter, with the drawn outline of a naked woman, to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday.
News Corp, its chair emeritus Rupert Murdoch and chief executive Robert Thomson; Dow Jones, the Journal’s publisher; and the reporters who authored the report were named as defendants in the suit filed Friday in federal court in the Southern District of Florida.
A Dow Jones spokesperson responded: “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”
Reps for News Corp did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suit, which seeks $10 billion in damages, stated “no authentic letter or drawing exists” showing Trump, 79, using “salacious language” to wish Epstein a happy 50th birthday in 2003.
“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,” wrote Trump’s attorney Alejandro Brito.
The report goes on to “provide a series of quotes from the nonexistent letter, claiming that the letter was written in third person, beginning with a voice over interluding a conversation, followed by a purported dialogue between President Trump and Epstein — as if they were characters in a play.”
Brito also accused the Journal of trying to “falsely represent as fact that President Trump drew the naked woman’s breasts and signed his name ‘Donald’ below her waist, ‘mimicking pubic hair.’”
“Defendants concocted this story to malign President Trump’s character and integrity and deceptively portray him in a false light,” the suit alleged.
Epstein, 66, committed suicide in a Manhattan jail on Aug. 10, 2019, after being arrested and charged with sex trafficking and abusing dozens of young girls at his homes in New York and Florida.
Epstein’s death — and the financier’s associations with powerful politicians, titans of business and other world leaders — have long been the subject of frenzied speculation that he was part of a larger, shadowy sex trafficking ring of highly influential figures.
Trump said during his 2024 campaign that he’d have “no problem” releasing investigatory findings related to the DOJ’s prosecution of Epstein if elected — including a purported “client list” — saying he was “not involved” and “never went to his island” of Little St. James, where the pedophile allegedly abused his underage victims.
But a July 6 memo from Trump’s Justice Department and FBI concluded a “systematic review” of evidence found “no incriminating ‘client list,’” “no credible evidence … that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions” and no “evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
Calls from some of the 47th president’s supporters — including both right-wing media influencers and Republican leaders in Congress — for more transparency prompted Trump on Thursday to ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to unseal any other “pertinent Grand Jury testimony” related to the Epstein case.
The following day, the DOJ moved to release that evidence, saying the “intense public scrutiny” warranted it.
