Donald Trump sued Dow Jones, Information Corp, Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Avenue Journal reporters on Friday over an explosive report that the president wrote a 2003 birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein that contained suggestive language. Trump claims the Wall Avenue Journal and its journalists defamed him and has filed swimsuit within the U.S. District Court docket for the Southern District of Florida.

Trump is in search of “not lower than $10 billion,” the identical quantity of damages he sought in his preliminary lawsuit towards CBS over the modifying of a “60 Minutes” interview.

“We now have simply filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit towards everybody concerned in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS ‘article’ within the ineffective ‘rag’ that’s, The Wall Avenue Journal,” Trump wrote on Fact Social. “I hope Rupert and his ‘buddies’ are trying ahead to the numerous hours of depositions and testimonies they must present on this case.”

In an interview with the paper, the president denied writing the letter to the disgraced financier. “This isn’t me,” Trump mentioned. “This can be a faux factor.”

The lawsuit repeats the declare that the letter is “a faux,” notes that it was not printed together with the story, and says the article doesn’t provide “any proof that President Trump has something to do with it.”

In an announcement, a spokesperson for Dow Jones, writer of the Wall Avenue Journal, mentioned: “We now have full confidence within the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and can vigorously defend towards any lawsuit.”

In accordance to the Wall Avenue Journal story by Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo, the letter was a part of a birthday album compiled by Epstein’s affiliate, Ghislaine Maxwell, stuffed with messages from a number of outstanding folks, together with legal professional Alan Dershowitz and former Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner. The paper reported that Trump’s letter “…comprises a number of traces of typewritten textual content framed by the define of a unadorned lady, which seems to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the girl’s breasts, and the longer term president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ beneath her waist, mimicking pubic hair. The letter concludes: ‘Comfortable Birthday — and should each day be one other fantastic secret.’”

The letter reportedly predated Epstein’s 2019 arrest for alleged intercourse crimes involving minors. It additionally would have been written 5 years earlier than Epstein pleaded responsible in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from women as younger as 14.

Epstein died in his jail cell in 2019, with a health worker ruling the trigger was suicide by hanging. Nonetheless, his dying has impressed a wave of conspiracy theories.

After the Wall Avenue Journal printed its story on Thursday, Trump wrote on social media, “I look ahead to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit towards him and his ‘pile of rubbish’ newspaper, the WSJ. That can be an fascinating expertise!!!”

Trump, who was pleasant with Epstein for years earlier than the pair had what he described as a “falling out,” has been underneath stress from his base of supporters to launch all paperwork associated to the Epstein investigation. He has to this point resisted these calls, however on Thursday on social media he introduced that he was telling Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi “to supply any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony” associated to the Epstein case.

The Wall Avenue Journal isn’t the one media group to face authorized motion from the president. Trump has not too long ago sued a number of media establishments, together with ABC Information and CBS Information, reaching multimillion-dollar settlements with each.