Yes, Trump has Sued Wall Street Journal for $10 Billion Over Alleged Epstein Letter
Trump: “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!!!”
We got the lawsuit, and President Donald Trump confirmed it:
BREAKING NEWS: We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS “article” in the useless “rag” that is, The Wall Street Journal. 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. We have proudly held to account ABC and George Slopadopoulos, CBS and 60 Minutes, The Fake Pulitzer Prizes, and many others who deal in, and push, disgusting LIES, and even FRAUD, to the American People. This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of your favorite President, ME, but also in order to continue standing up for ALL Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media. I hope Rupert and his “friends” are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case. Thank you for your attention to this matter. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Trump filed the lawsuit against Dow Jones, News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, Robert Thomson, and two Wall Street Journal reporters, Joseph Palazzolo and Khadeeja Safdar, for “no less than $10 billion dollars.”
The WSJ published a story claiming Trump sent a crude letter to Jeffrey Epstein for his birthday. The letter included a picture of a naked woman.
The letter suggested that Trump was aware of Epstein’s secrets.
From the lawsuit:
On the one hand, Defendants Safdar and Palazzolo falsely pass off as fact that President Trump, in 2003, wrote, drew, and signed this letter. And on the other hand, Defendants Safdar and Palazzolo failed to attach the letter, failed to attach the alleged drawing, failed to show proof that President Trump authored or signed any such letter, and failed to explain how this purported letter was obtained. The reason for those failures is because no authentic letter or drawing exists. Defendants concocted this story to malign President Trump’s character and integrity and deceptively portray him in a false light.
Here’s the thing. It’s challenging for a public figure to prevail in defamation suits.
Trump has to prove “actual malice.”
The proof has to come from “actual knowledge that the statement is false or reckless disregard for the truth.”
Trump cannot prove “reckless disregard” solely by showing that the defendants failed to research the letter.
Trump must prove that those involved in the lawsuit knew the letter was fake or had serious doubts about its legitimacy before hitting the publish button.
Now, people like you and me can tell, even without seeing the letter, it is fake. But those determined to destroy Trump and/or get clicks and fame? Yeah, I think of the phrase “ignorance is bliss.”
***Previous reporting….
Okay, so has it happened or not?
NEW: The docket for Trump's purported lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch for the WSJ's Jeffrey Epstein story has a bunch of weird details.
A person close to Trump's legal team told me it's a fake.
The lawsuit is still in the works, the person said.https://t.co/2L8xqh1AHo
— Jacob Shamsian ⚖️ (@JayShams) July 18, 2025
This is insane. Who files a fake lawsuit?
Then again, in these days, I’m not shocked.
I simply cannot wait for the story of the filing of the fake lawsuit. Who does that. https://t.co/iSdBfmhziF
— Sunny (@sunnyright) July 18, 2025
***Previous reporting…
President Donald Trump has sued Dow Jones, News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, and two Wall Street Journal reporters for libel.
The WSJ published a story claiming Trump sent a crude letter to Jeffrey Epstein for his birthday. The letter included a picture of a naked woman.
The letter suggested that Trump was aware of Epstein’s secrets.
The complaint is not available yet.
Trump filed it in a Miami federal court.
Trump wrote on Truth Social: “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!!!”
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Comments
Who said yesterday this would never happen?
It’s another Dan Ra(th)er moment for the media. “Oh, look. An obviously forged document that makes Trump look bad. Print it!”
WSJ is an open borders rag.
Kool., May I have 4M of it after he wins. I got expenses you know,
This whole thing exists because the Democrats otherwise have -nothing- to complain about. Since they can’t attack his accomplishments (which have been popular) they must attack his character. Since they have been attacking his character for ten straight years, they have to go back to 2003 to even invent something even remotely possible.
Even then, I can’t imagine what the Left thinks this will accomplish. Trump is already President and can’t run again. This (apparently) fake filing however can only be an attempt to keep the story alive, so apparently this is the best thing the Democrats have got, which is incredibly pathetic.
Trump will never, ever, follow through with this lawsuit, because it would involve discovery and depositions of everything and everyone involved.
Really? He’s already received a few judgements from similar lawsuits.
Ah, yes, the idiot leftist talking point they were trying to circulate today.
Proven wrong already.
See, in order to believe that requires you to believe Trump is wrong and that the WSJ is pure as the driven snow with nothing to hide.
It’s the exact opposite. This is such a joke that Trump is absolutely chomping at the bit to get discovery of just what insane lunacy the WSJ has been up to.
If Trump pursues this billion dollar lawsuit, he will have to reveal in discovery everything he knows about Epstein, all of his contacts with Epstein, how many times he was on his island (or not), and hundreds of other details. He will also have to sit for hour after hour in depositions where the Wall Street Journal attorneys will question him about everything, under oath, subject to criminal penalties for perjury, about his relationship to Epstein and anything related to Epstein. This will be front page news for weeks. There is no way that Trump’s lawyers would ever allow him to do this. Trump is only filing this billion dollar lawsuit to try to distract people from how his administration has reversed itself about having the list, saying they have it, and then they don’t have it, and the tens of thousands of hours of videos they claim to have and their promise to be transparent and make it public, which they now won’t do. Trump brought this upon himself.
Why would he be deposed about any of those things? How are they relevant to the question of whether the letter exists, and if so who wrote it?
Who exactly do you imagine the defendants deposing? The story only mentions 4 people who would have had contemporaneous knowledge of this actual card. Two are dead (the bookbinder and Epstein), one is the plaintiff (I’ve seen a deposition of him, it was useless even before he hit his autumn years), and one is in federal prison and not exactly credible.
And the real fight would be about if what the Journal actually said was either factually true or opinion based on disclosed facts. It would be a fight over the applicability and scope of New York’s reporter privilege, and after that’s done, mostly just deposing the journalists on what did you see, how did you verify this, ect while dancing around the privilege.
While I think the lawsuit is garbage, and therefore he will drop it, this is not a good reason. Why would he fear discovery and depositions? What could he be deposed about that he’d rather not? There are no allegations that he did anything wrong. Even if he had written the letter, it would merely be embarrassing, not incriminating.
And it should be easily verifiable whether it’s his style. If he doesn’t draw pictures, then it’s unlikely that broke a lifelong habit to draw this one. No extensive discovery is necessary for that.
The complaint is available, and it is absolute nonsense from the start. It doesn’t even get the defendant descriptions right. It claims that Rupert Murdoch is a NewsCorp director (he’s not and hasn’t been since 2023) and majority owner (the family owns 14% of NewsCorp’s equity, and controls 41% of the votes, neither of which is a majority.)
It claims that the article does not say whether people at the Journal actually saw the letter, then two paragraphs later quotes the article explicitly saying the letter itself was reviewed by the Journal.
It claims that the article says Trump authored, drew, and signed the letter, but nowhere did the article actually do that. The article describes the letter, the album the letter was a part of, facts about the credibility of the album itself, facts about Trump and Epstein’s relationship, and Trump’s denial of authoring it. It quite explicitly says they don’t know how the letter was prepared.
It’s a prime example of what failing to really enforce FRCP 11 has led to.
No other story should take greater prominence than the Obama Conspiracy. Like Jan 6, it should raised whenever possible. Despite this sensational move by Trump, Epstein is small potatoes. Obama’s move stands right with the question of who was president during Biden, probably moreso. Despite what Murdoch may pay, it pales in what Obama’s crowd owes for the damage they have caused. At least they gave America Trump to help clean the stain.
I have seen multiple commenters on other sites all capping that the WSJ would never post this without properly vetting it. The lulz are strong with regards to such people.
The card was BOUND in a book with all the other cards by a prestigious bookbinder in 2003. So, are we to believe that Trump, Epstein’s friend at the time, refused to send the specially requested card and 22 years ago a phony card was bound into the book? This is absurd. Obviously, along the lines of stag party, jokey cards were solicited. It is really no big deal. Even Alan Dershowitz did not deny sending a card, but for once his stellar memory is hazy about it. Rather than ignoring the issue as a “grabbing pussy” minor incident, Trump has decided to lie about it and bluster. Not a good look.
Yeah bro, a ‘prestigious bookbinder’. Do you people even HEAR yourselves some times?
And you claim he was Epstein’s friend, and that he ‘specially requested’ a card… and Trump typed it, when he was well-known for handwriting such cards?
And of course that doesn’t even mention how this card magically didn’t surface for 22 years, even when the left was desperate to take him out and had control of the government?
Absolutely hilarious that your takeaway from this laughable farce is LOL TRUMP LYING AND BLUSTERING.
Nobody believes this nonsense. Even the left doesn’t really believe it they’re just so desperate to cling to anything that they think can hurt Trump no matter how much of a joke it is.
You are a very stupid person who has not read the WSJ article.’ Epstein’s girlfriend solicited all the cards as a surprise. Like you, I voted for Trump three times. Unlike you I am not a moron.
Um, what’s wrong with that line? Weitz was a prestigious bookbinder. His client list included Robert De Niro, Oprah Winfrey, Ronald Reagan, and Cyrus Vance.
My guess is that he agreed to send a card, but had someone else do it for him, and then forgot about it.
Howard, why do you care and what do you think this will change?
I mean, the other person has a clear misunderstanding of how discovery would work here (assuming it actually survives 12(b)(6)), but what “judgements” has Trump received in other cases like this? At least in recent years, the only defamation cases he’s been a party to that actually went to a verdict and judgment, he was the defendant and lost.
Meant as a reply to “Paddy M”.
WSJ has always has their establishment cuckservative RINOs, like david brooks for example, in the editorial column. It was matter of time before they got called out for their fake news bias.
David Brooks doesn’t write for the WSJ. He is a columnist for the New York Times.
He doesn’t write now, but he did earlier.
President Trump wants this one to go to discovery. He gave abc and cbs and out. Not this time. He is going to the mattress this time.
praying for the djt victory over these pos
Doubt he can win. Possible but unlikely.
The discovery is what I suspect he is after.
If he really wanted to get discovery, he probably should’ve found lawyers that actually have experience with defamation litigation in Florida. The complaint alleges the tortious conduct substantially occurred in Florida in order to argue venue is proper. Problem is, that would also mean Florida defamation law applies, and Florida requires prospective defamation plaintiffs to provide notice to prospective defendants 5 days before they file a complaint in court. Fla Stat 770.01. Trump wasn’t even aware of the potential story until Tuesday, and filed suit Friday, so not enough time passed. If his lawyers had waited two days, he would’ve been in a better position (he did say on Tuesday he would sue if they published, so by tomorrow they could claim 5 days notice), but competent Florida lawyers would’ve formally noticed the suit when it published on Thursday, and then filed the following Wednesday, so that there is no question of compliance.
There’s caselaw from SDFL that the remedy for failing to comply with Fla Stat 770.01 is dismissal without leave to amend. See Tobinick v. Novella, No. 9:14-CV80781, 2015 WL 1191267, at *9–10 (S.D. Fla. Mar. 16, 2015). In February, EDFL also made the same conclusion in Faller v Beasley Broadcast Group. The complaint filed by Trump’s counsel explicitly laid out the timeline, apparently unaware that they were admitting to facts that confirm noncompliance. Trump’s only real out here would be to try to argue that Fla Stat 770.01 is procedural under the Erie Doctrine, and so should not be controlling in federal court, which will be fun to see everyone suddenly become an expert in federal civil procedure.
“Now, people like you and me can tell, even without seeing the letter, it is fake.” Lol. Ms. Chastain doesn’t even NEED to see it. St. Donald COULDN’T have had anything to DO with it. True Trump Sycophancy Syndrome right there.
You know, I’d have a lot more respect for all you turds on here if you would just admit that – while you like his policies – Trump is a scumbag.
Are you 13??? This sounds like a snotty teen trying to sound cool.
No one here cares about earning your respect, dingus.
We’d be content if you just pissed off.
I don’t know Mary IRL.. nope, exchanges on X.. comments here and there. One thing I know for sure us that she is not a Trump sycophant. She is a brand new Lawyer, and she is the biggest Cubs fan ever.. but you are wrong.. That last comment about potus is pure projection on your part.
I lived in NYC in the late 90’s/early 00’s, and Donald Trump would call in and appear on Howard Stern’s radio show. The idea of him ever becoming president was as far fetched as Stern himself becoming president. So as for the question of whether it is plausible that Trump would have sent such a letter to Epstein around that time: If you think Trump couldn’t have sent that letter, then 1.) You don’t know this man, and 2.) You ARE a sychopant in a bubble.
This is not true. The article does not make any such claim. Also, this statement is not defamatory.
Again, no such claim was made, and it would be a hard case to make that it’s defamatory.
It is a well-known and undisputed fact that for many years Trump was Epstein’s friend. There are many pictures of them together, and Trump has not denied it. He says he broke off the friendship before 2008. And in 2019 he said he hadn’t spoke to Epstein in about 15 years. Which means that even granting him the full 15 years they were still friends at the time of the birthday.
This is one of the statements Trump claims is defamatory. How so? Not only is it undisputedly true, what’s defamatory about it? It’s just a well known fact. He was socializing with these people, and he did entertain people at those locations.
Heh. Trump probably has the book.