US President Donald Trump sued media magnate Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal on Friday for at least $10 billion over the publication of a bombshell report on his friendship with the infamous alleged sex trafficker of underage girls, Jeffrey Epstein.
The defamation lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, saw the 79-year-old Republican hitting back at a scandal threatening to cause serious political damage.
"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," Trump posted on Truth Social late Friday.
The Journal reported Thursday that in 2003, the then-real estate magnate wrote a suggestive birthday letter to Epstein, illustrated with a naked woman and referring to their shared "secret."
The lawsuit, which also names two reporters and Murdoch's company News Corp. as defendants, claims that no such letter exists and that the Journal intended to malign Trump with an article already viewed by hundreds of millions of people.
"And given the timing of the Defendants' article, which shows their malicious intent behind it, the overwhelming financial and reputational harm suffered by President Trump will continue to multiply," it said.
In another bid to dampen outrage among his own supporters about an alleged government cover-up of Epstein's activities and 2019 death, Trump ordered his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to seek the unsealing of grand jury testimony from the prosecution against the disgraced financier.
In a filing in New York, Bondi cited "extensive public interest" for the unusual request to release what is typically secret testimony.
With AFP
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