President Trump on Friday filed a libel lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal’s publisher and its leader, Rupert Murdoch, after the paper published a story on what it called a “bawdy” birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein that the paper alleged was signed by Mr. Trump.
The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of Florida, seeks at least $10 billion in damages. It alleges the paper’s claims were “false, defamatory, unsubstantiated, and disparaging,” and accuses the Journal of “clear journalistic failures.”
The paper claimed the letter, from the early 2000s, featured Mr. Trump’s signature as well as a birthday message and a drawing of a nude woman. According to the Journal’s report, it was collected in a book along with letters from other friends and acquaintances to mark Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. The president has denied the report, calling the letter a “FAKE.”
The president has previously acknowledged he crossed paths with Epstein years ago, but has said they had a “falling out.”
The suit names the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones & Company, along with its parent company, News Corporation. Also named in the lawsuit as defendants are Wall Street Journal reporters Joseph Palazzolo and Khadeeja Safdar, the bylines on the Epstein story, as well as Murdoch and Dow Jones CEO Robert Thomson.
In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump referred to it as a “POWERHOUSE Lawsuit” and a “historic legal action.”
Defamation lawsuits face a high bar to success in U.S. courts. Typically, for a public figure to win a defamation suit, they need to demonstrate not only that false claims were made about them, but also that the defendant acted with “actual malice,” meaning that they knew the claims were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. CBS News has also reached out to Dow Jones for comment.
Facing pressure to disclose more details on Epstein, who died in his jail cell in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges, Mr. Trump on Thursday ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of grand jury testimony related to Epstein. The Justice Department late Friday filed a motion to unseal that grand jury testimony.
Epstein was investigated by federal authorities in Florida in the 2000s, which ended in a non-prosecution agreement and a guilty plea on state prostitution charges, and he was later charged with child sex trafficking in Manhattan in 2019. The government also secured a conviction against Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. It investigated the circumstances of Epstein’s death in federal custody, which was deemed a suicide.
The order from Mr. Trump comes after the Justice Department and FBI released a memo stating that Epstein did not have an incriminating “client list,” did not try to blackmail any prominent figures, and died by suicide. The memo drew backlash from across the political spectrum, including from some fervent Trump backers, in part because Bondi and other administration figures had promised to release information on Epstein.
