US president argues article 'false, malicious, and defamatory' in lawsuit
US President Donald Trump sued the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, for a report claiming he wrote a lewd birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein, according to media reports Friday.
Media reports said the lawsuit, filed Friday in Miami federal court, accused the defendants of libel and slander.
The WSJ revealed Thursday that a letter from Trump was included in an album that was created to celebrate the 50th birthday of the disgraced financier.
The leather-bound memento was compiled by Epstein's long-time aide and convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003, according to the newspaper.
The US president responded on social media by describing the letter as "FAKE" and saying the article "is false, malicious, and defamatory."
The report comes as Trump finds himself in a whirlwind with the Epstein files -- the collection of government documents that the Justice Department has so far refused to make public, that is driving the largest wedge to date within the president's Make America Great Again, or MAGA, movement, that he popularized during his 2026 and 2024 presidential campaigns.
The Justice Department announced last week that it determined Epstein died by suicide in 2019 and claimed he had no "client list," sparking discontent among the president's MAGA supporters.
Trump has called the Epstein scandal a "hoax" and demanded his supporters move on, even as they continue to clamor for the release of the documents, including the "client list" that Attorney General Pam Bondi said in February was "sitting on my desk right now."
