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By Gabe Whisnant and Sonam Sheth
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President Donald Trump on Friday followed through on his threat to sueover a Wall Street Journal story revealing the details of a "bawdy" letter Trump sent the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The lawsuit has six defendants, including the Journal's parent company NewsCorp and its founder Rupert Murdoch.
The Context
Trump has raged against the Journal and Murdoch since the publication reported on Thursday that Trump sent Epstein a letter for his 50th birthday. According to the report, Trump's note to Epstein featured several lines of typewritten text surrounded by the outline of a naked woman, sketched in marker, and included Trump's signature.
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"Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret," the letter said, according to the report.
Trump told the Journal in a Tuesday interview that he would file a lawsuit if it published its story about the letter, which he said was "fake," and added in a Truth Social post Thursday evening that the newspaper had put out "defamatory lies" about him.
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Who Are The Defendants In Trump's Lawsuit?
The six defendants named in Trump's lawsuit are: Murdoch, NewsCorp, Dow Jones (publisher of the Journal), NewsCorp CEO Robert Thomson and Journal reporters Joe Palazzolo and Khadeeja Safdar. The president's suit accuses the defendants of defamation and was filed in the Southern District of Florida.
Messages seeking comment from Safdar and NewsCorp were not immediately returned Friday.
The 18-page lawsuit seeks at least $10 billion in damages and accuses Murdoch's publication of engaging in a "malicious" effort to "malign" the president with a story based on a "nonexistent" letter.
It also reiterates the White House's allegation that Trump was never shown the letter the story was based on.
"Defendants concocted this story to malign President Trump's character and integrity and deceptively portray him in a false light," the suit alleges. It goes on to accuse the defendants of defamation and also emphasizes how widely-read the Journal's story was, saying "hundreds of millions of people" have viewed the "false and defamatory" statements.
The suit was filed in the Southern District of Florida.
Why Is Trump Suing Over The Epstein Story?
The Journal's reporting complicated the president's efforts to distance himself from Epstein, whom he called a "creep" last week while denigrating the media's focus on his administration's handling of the investigation into the financier's death.
The president said after the story was published that he had "personally" warned the outlet and Murdoch before they printed the report that he would sue them if they pressed ahead with publication, and said that Murdoch had assured him that he would "take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so."
"The Press has to learn to be truthful, and not rely on sources that probably don't even exist," he wrote on Truth Social on Thursday evening, adding that he "looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal."
What People Are Saying
Trump continued ripping the Journal over its report earlier Friday, writing on Truth Social: "If there was a 'smoking gun' on Epstein, why didn't the Dems, who controlled the 'files' for four years, and had [then Attorney General Merrick] Garland and [former FBI Director James] Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!"
He tacked on in a separate social media post: "I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his "pile of garbage" newspaper, the WSJ. That will be an interesting experience!!!"
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X: "The Wall Street Journal published a hatchet job article with a FAKE 'birthday letter' that is supposedly from 2003 ... The WSJ refused to show us the letter and conceded they don't even have it in their possession when we asked them to verify the alleged document they're basing their ENTIRE fake story on."
She added: "When has President Trump ever spoken like the conversation alleged in the fake WSJ story? That's not at all how he speaks or writes. The WSJ knowingly published false information to smear the President of the United States."
Joshua Rhett Miller contributed reporting to this story.
Update 7/18/25, 7:12 p.m. ET: This article has been updated to reflect the number of defendants in Trump's lawsuit.
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