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Washington: US President Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal, making good on his threat to sue over a story reporting that he signed a letter to Jeffrey Epstein for the disgraced financiers 50th birthday.
The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Miami on Friday, less than 24 hours after the story was published. The filing which names Murdoch, News Corp, chief executive Robert Thomson and the two reporters as defendants says Trump is seeking $US10 billion ($15.3 billion) in damages, punitive damages, court costs and other relief.
Donald Trump has filed defamation action against Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation over a Wall Street Journal story. Credit: Reuters/AP
This historic legal action is being brought against the so-called authors of this defamation, the now fully disgraced WSJ, as well as its corporate owners and affiliates, with Rupert Murdoch and Robert Thomson (whatever his role is!) at the top of the list, Trump posted on Truth Social.
The Australian-born Thomson is the long-serving chief executive of News Corp, based in New York. He was previously the editor-in-chief of Dow Jones, the News Corp subsidiary that publishes the Journal, and once worked at The Sydney Morning Herald, among other papers.
On Thursday (Friday AEST), the Journal reported Trump was among several Epstein associates who contributed a letter to a leather-bound book for the financiers 50th birthday in 2003, organised by Epsteins friend Ghislaine Maxwell.
The letter, which took the form of a cryptic, imagined conversation between the two men, was reportedly typed within a drawing of a naked woman, with two small arcs depicting her breasts. The exchange concluded: Happy Birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret.
Trump denied writing the letter and claimed to have never drawn a picture in his life, though evidence quickly emerged disproving that claim. The Journal reported that Trumps signature appeared below the womans waist, mimicking pubic hair.
The complaint filed in court alleged the defendants failed to attach the letter and drawing, failed to prove that Trump authored or signed such a letter, and failed to explain how the purported letter was obtained. In its story, the Journal did not claim to possess the documents, but said it had reviewed the letter.
Defendants concocted this story to malign President Trumps character and integrity and deceptively portray him in a false light, Trumps lawyers claimed in the complaint.
