The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of Florida federal court, targets media mogul Rupert Murdoch, News Corp, Dow Jones and two reporters from the Wall Street Journal. Billionaire Murdoch is a founding member of News Corp, and Dow Jones, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal, is a subsidiary of this group.
President Trump accused the defendants of defamation and malicious intent, causing him serious damage to his reputation and finances. Reuters reported that the White House owner is seeking at least $10 billion in damages.
US President Donald Trump at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on July 15. Photo: AFP
“This lawsuit is not only on behalf of your favorite President, myself, but also to continue to stand up for all Americans who will no longer tolerate the wrongdoing and abuse of power by the Fake News Media,” Trump added.
Mr. Murdoch and the companies involved have not commented.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that a letter signed by Donald Trump was among a collection of birthday letters to convicted pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. The letter contained a few typewritten lines, framed by a drawing of a nude woman, apparently hand-sketched in bold marker.
The letter ended with the words: “Happy birthday and may each day be another wonderful secret.”
Mr Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the sensitive picture, and warned that he would sue the newspaper if they published the story. “I’ve never painted in my life. I don’t paint women. That’s not my language. That’s not my language,” the US President said.
Mr. Trump has recently come under a lot of pressure after the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a memo, concluding that there was no evidence that pedophile billionaire Epstein “created a client list” or blackmailed powerful people as many rumors said.
The agencies also confirmed that Epstein committed suicide in a Manhattan jail in August 2019, not murdered as suspected, and would not disclose further information about the investigation.
In recent days, President Trump has also repeatedly called on Republican voters to “not waste their time” on the case, accusing the “Epstein dossier” of being a hoax by the Democratic Party for political purposes.
This has left some Trump supporters, who believed in those rumors, dissatisfied, especially since the Republican politician once affirmed that he would “not hesitate” to release documents about the Epstein case when he returned to the White House.
On July 17, Mr. Trump announced that he had asked the Department of Justice to ask the court to allow the release of records of grand jury testimony related to pedophile billionaire Epstein.
