U.S. President Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, its reporters, and its parent company, seeking at least $20 billion in damages. The legal action follows the publication of a story that mentions a purported letter Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003, which reportedly included a sketch of a nude woman and Trump’s signature.
Trump has denied authoring the note and called the article entirely false. In the 18-page complaint filed in federal court in Miami, his legal team accuses the newspaper of “serious breaches of journalistic ethics and factual standards,” pointing out that the Journal never published the alleged letter or sketch, which—according to Trump’s lawyers—suggests they do not exist.
“The reason for those omissions is simple: there is no authentic letter or drawing from President Donald Trump,” the filing states.
The report, written by journalists Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo, was published Thursday afternoon. Both reporters are named as defendants in the lawsuit. Shortly after the story’s release, Trump threatened legal action, stating on his social network Truth Social that both the Wall Street Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, had been warned the letter was fake. “If they published it, they would be sued,” he wrote.
Trump also claimed that Murdoch, head of News Corp—the Journal’s parent company—promised to “take care of it,” but “obviously, he didn’t have the power to do so.”
CNN has reached out to The Wall Street Journal for comment.
Trump’s ties to Epstein—the late convicted sex offender who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges—have come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks. On the 2024 campaign trail, Donald Trump has said he would consider releasing additional documents related to Epstein, aiming to satisfy demands from right-wing influencers who have called for greater government transparency and questioned the official conclusion that Epstein died by suicide.
Earlier this month, a memo from Trump’s own Department of Justice stated there is no evidence Epstein kept a “client list” implicating powerful men in sexual crimes. That finding has frustrated some of Trump’s most loyal supporters and triggered internal tensions that threaten to fracture his MAGA coalition.
Trump and Murdoch have had a complex, on-and-off relationship over the years, both personally and professionally. Murdoch also owns Fox News, the most-watched cable news network in the U.S. and long seen as a Donald Trump ally—where Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, is currently employed.
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