U.S. President Donald Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit on Friday against The Wall Street Journal, its parent company News Corp, and its owner Rupert Murdoch over a report that alleged he authored a lewd birthday letter to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. "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 posted on Truth Social. The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Miami, targets WSJ reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joseph Palazzolo — credited in the byline — as well as Dow Jones, News Corp executive Robert Thomson, and Rupert Murdoch personally. Trump accuses the defendants of "clear journalistic failures" and says the claims in the article were "false, defamatory, unsubstantiated, and disparaging." The WSJ report, published Thursday, claimed that a letter from Trump was included in a leather-bound photo album compiled in 2003 by Ghislaine Maxwell — Epstein's long-time associate and a convicted child sex trafficker — to commemorate Epstein's 50th birthday. According to the paper, the album included notes from Epstein's powerful circle, including Trump. Trump denied the allegation and labeled the report a politically motivated smear, referring to the publication as "fake news." He warned that Murdoch and others involved should prepare for "many hours of depositions and testimonies" as part of what he called a "historic legal action." The lawsuit comes at a time of mounting internal division within Trump's own MAGA base over the Epstein files—a controversial trove of government documents that the U.S. Department of Justice has refused to release in full. While Trump has dismissed the issue as a "hoax" and urged supporters to move on, key MAGA figures continue to demand the public release of names associated with Epstein's alleged trafficking network. The DOJ recently concluded Epstein died by suicide in 2019 and claimed there was no "client list." But the remark by Attorney General Pam Bondi in February—that "the client list is sitting on my desk right now"—has only added fuel to the controversy, further dividing the president's base as he mounts another re-election campaign. — Agencies
