U.S. President Donald Trump is suing News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch for defamation.
It comes after the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article alleging Trump wrote convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a birthday card in 2003.
Trump’s lawyers allege the article “maliciously” defamed him by “falsely claiming without substantiation that President Trump is a ‘friend,’ ‘pal,’ or ‘family’ of Epstein.”
Here’s what to know.
Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted sex offender who worked as a banker.
He socialised with many high-profile celebrities and politicians in the 1990s and early 2000s.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to sex trafficking minors, and served 13 months in jail.
In 2019, he was arrested on new federal sex trafficking charges. He died aged 66 in his jail cell while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide.
Trump and Epstein
In a 2002 New York Magazine interview, Trump said: “I’ve known Jeff [Epstein] for fifteen years. Terrific guy”.
He also told the publication Epstein was “a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
After Epstein’s second conviction in 2019, during Trump’s first presidency, he told White House reporters he was “not a fan” of Epstein and hadn’t been in contact with him for 15 years.
During his 2024 presidential election campaign, Trump promised to release files from federal proceedings against Epstein.
These files contain flight logs, contact lists, invitations and photographs seized during federal investigations into Epstein before his death.
Last year, Trump told Fox News he would release the files, but that “you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there.”
In February 2025, U.S. Attorney-General Pam Bondi said a list of Epstein’s clients for sex trafficking was “on [her] desk”.
At the time, she released a bundle of documents to a group of far-right influencers, primarily consisting of previously-released information.
In June, Tesla CEO and former Government employee Elon Musk alleged Trump “is in the Epstein files.”
Musk said this was the reason they had not been released.
The U.S. Department of Justice – which Bondi leads – has since said there is no “client list.”
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WSJ article
The WSJ published an article last week alleging Trump wrote Epstein a birthday card in 2003.
The letter was included in a “birthday book” given to Epstein by his former partner and convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell.
The journalists allege a letter “bearing Trump’s name” included an “outline of a naked woman which appear[ed] to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker.”
Their article recreates the text of the card, but does not include images or a scanned version of it.
The letter’s text is reportedly written in third person and depicts “an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein”. This is seen in a section of the letter which says:
“Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.“
The letter concludes with the sentence: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,” according to the WSJ.
Lawsuit
Last week, Trump’s legal team announced a lawsuit against Dow Jones (the publisher and owner of the WSJ) and its owner News Corp for publishing “false, defamatory, and malignant statements.”
Trump is also suing News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch, CEO Robert Thomson, and the article’s authors Khadeeja Safdar and Joseph Palazzolo.
The lawsuit alleges the article was malicious and fraudulent because its authors knew its contents were false.
The lawsuit also said that because the WSJ did not attach a copy of the letter in the article, it isn’t clear “whether defendants have obtained a copy of the letter, have seen it, have had it described to them, or any other circumstances that would otherwise lend credibility to the article.”
Trump is seeking $US10 billion ($AU15 billion) in damages.
Response
After the article was published, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social: “The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein... I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off”.
In a statement, Dow Jones said: “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”
One of Epstein’s alleged victims, Danielle Bensky, told U.S. publication NBC: “With what’s happening now, it feels like we’re being erased. All the brave women who came forward… all the work that we did to tell the world what happened to us, it’s all being erased.”
Trump has since ordered the Department of Justice to release transcripts from court proceedings that led to charges being laid against Epstein and Maxwell.
The move will need to be approved by a court.
