US President Donald Trump has filed a libel lawsuit towards billionaire Rupert Murdoch and his media empire over a Wall Road Journal report that claimed he despatched a lewd birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.
The swimsuit, filed Friday in federal courtroom within the Southern District of Florida, names Murdoch, Information Corp, Dow Jones, and two Journal reporters as defendants, based on a number of media reviews. Whereas the total grievance was not instantly out there, courtroom information affirm the case has been docketed.
“I sit up for getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit towards him and his ‘pile of rubbish’ newspaper, the WSJ. That shall be an fascinating expertise!!!” Trump wrote on Reality Social.
The lawsuit stems from a WSJ article revealed Thursday, which claimed that Trump authored a suggestive letter to Epstein for his fiftieth birthday again in 2003. The report cited an alleged drawing of a nude lady signed “Donald,” included in a leather-bound album compiled by Epstein affiliate Ghislaine Maxwell.
“I instructed Rupert Murdoch it was a Rip-off… However he did [print it], and now I’m going to sue his ass off,” Trump wrote Thursday night time.
The authorized transfer follows days of intensifying backlash over Trump’s dealing with of the Epstein case. In an effort to handle rising public skepticism, Trump directed Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi to hunt courtroom approval to unseal grand jury transcripts, after the Division of Justice introduced that no additional paperwork could be launched and that no Epstein “shopper record” ever existed.
Bondi had beforehand claimed the record was “sitting on [her] desk” and referred to a “truckload” of disturbing FBI information. She later walked again these remarks, clarifying that she was referring extra broadly to case information in her workplace.
Epstein, arrested in 2019 on intercourse trafficking fees, was discovered useless in jail earlier than standing trial. Though his loss of life was formally dominated a suicide, it has lengthy fueled public skepticism. Ghislaine Maxwell was later convicted and is serving a 20-year sentence.
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