U.S. President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, claiming that his name appeared on a 2003 birthday greeting for Jeffrey Epstein that contained a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to secrets they shared.
Trump is seeking at least $10 billion in damages.
Murdoch, Dow Jones, News Corp and its CEO Robert Thomson, and two Wall Street Journal reporters are named as defendants in the case filed in a federal court in Miami.
The lawsuit claims that these individuals defamed Trump and caused him to suffer “overwhelming” financial and reputational harm.
Epstein, died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019.
The Epstein case sparked conspiracy theories among Trump’s fans, who claimed the government was concealing Epstein’s ties to the wealthy and powerful.
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The U.S President categorically refuted the Journal claim. Trump had informed Murdoch, the founder of News Corp, that he intended to sue. Dow Jones, the newspaper’s parent corporation, is a division of News Corporation.
A spokesperson for Dow Jones said in a statement: “We have full confidence in the rigour and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”
The lawsuit called Trump’s alleged birthday greeting “fake,” and said the Journal published its article to harm Trump’s reputation.
A $10-billion US award would far exceed the largest defamation judgments and settlements in recent history.
These include a more than $1-billion US judgment against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and Fox News’s settlement with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million US.
The Epstein affair has increasingly disquieted the White House, after the U.S. Justice Department this month concluded that there was no evidence to support long-held conspiracy theories about his clients and death.
