Name: Trump sues Murdoch and Wall Street Journal for $10bn over Epstein article | BBC News
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President Trump is seeking at least $10 billion in damages in a defamation lawsuit filed against the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal.

It comes after the paper reported on a 50th birthday note Mr. Trump allegedly wrote to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, featuring a sketch of a naked woman.

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In a post on his Truth Social platform, he says, we've 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.

Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal, says it will vigorously defend itself against the Trump lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the US Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has asked a court to unseal grand jury transcripts from the original case against Mr. Epstein, six years after he died by suicide in jail, where he was awaiting trial for sex offenses.

Mr. Trump has faced mounting pressure from many of his own core supporters to share the information after he promised to release files relating to Mr. Epstein during his presidential campaign.

Our North America editor, Sarah Smith, has the report.

Try as he might, Donald Trump cannot ignore the Epstein scandal.

The questions about his relationship with the sex offender and what information the government holds about him just keep coming.

Mr. President, did you get Bondi released from the files?

It's no secret that Donald Trump knew and partied with Jeffrey Epstein.

He'd rather forget about this, of course, and so is furious that details of a lewd lawsuit and a letter, including a drawing of a naked woman he apparently sent to Epstein, have been published.

He posted on social media, the Wall Street Journal printed a fake letter supposedly to Epstein.

These are not my words, not the way I talk.

Make some noise if you care about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

Unusually, Donald Trump is being attacked by some of his most ardent supporters, angry that he's not published government documents, including the names of Epstein's clients.

Six months ago, the attorney general said she was preparing to publish Epstein's so-called client list.

It's sitting on my desk right now to review.

That's been a directive by President Trump.

After falling out with Donald Trump, Elon Musk posted on X in June that Trump is in the Epstein files.

The White House rubbished the post, which Musk later deleted.

Last week, the Department of Justice concluded Epstein did not have a client list that could implicate high-profile people and that he did take his own life, contradicting long-held right-wing beliefs.

Earlier this week, President Trump declared the whole Epstein conspiracy theory was just a hoax.

Die-hard Trump fans are demonstrating their fury, feeling they've been deceived and demanding the Epstein files be published.

Right-wing podcasters, complete with tin hats, will not let this go.

Obviously, the Trump administration is trying to cover up.

Something changed because they ran on this idea of exposing it all.

Mr. Trump's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, is in the firing line over this.

I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein.

And now, to try to satisfy his angry base, he's ordered her to try and get at least some of the evidence the prosecution gathered against Jeffrey Epstein and make it public.

Well, we're going to stay with the story and speak to Dr. Richard Johnson, the Senior Lecturer in US Politics and Policy at Queen Mary University here in London.

I wonder, first off, what do you make of this lawsuit, President Trump himself describing it as historic?

Well, it's very much Donald Trump's style.

Throughout his entire business and political career, when he finds himself in some trouble, he launches a lawsuit.

In terms of the politics of this, I mean, what Donald Trump, I suppose, needs to do for his own political sake on this is to send the message to his supporters that this is some kind of conspiracy against him, some kind of attack against him.

Because at the moment, it's an unusual issue where you see very high levels of support among both Democrats and Republicans for releasing all the files.

About 85% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans want all the files released.

So Trump needs to, in effect, polarise the issue and to say, don't fall for this, it's the Democrats who are attacking me, it's the Republicans who have never come on board with MAGA, et cetera.

And I think that's sort of also what he's trying to do here with this lawsuit.

Because if, once those files are released and there is damaging material in there, how can his team fight that?

Well, in a sense, Trump is currently reaping what he sowed to an extent.

I mean, his entree into the presidency was partly as a result of Trump fueling conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's place of birth or what was on Hillary Clinton's computer servers.

And all throughout the Biden presidency, Donald Trump's outriders were suggesting that Biden was covering up something from the Epstein files.

And Trump has now appointed many of these people into senior positions in his administration, including the FBI director.

Once they came in, clearly there has been something that's caused them to reassess the wisdom of releasing it.

For example, some of these are sealed by the courts and you don't want to release files that may endanger innocent people, both people who gave testimony, but also maybe people who have been accused, but are innocent.

A less good reason for this is to protect Donald Trump.

Is he doing this to protect himself or are there other legal reasons why the administration is not moving on this?

Dr. Johnson, I appreciate you're not a lawyer.

However, defamation lawsuits in the US and here in the UK, certainly are very, they have a very high bar that has been set.

I mean, what will need to be proven in order for the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch and the parent company to win this case?

You know, I think the issue is not so much what it'll take to win the case.

It's actually about trying to muddy the waters for the Wall Street Journal and for other outlets.

In a sense, I'm not sure Trump's expecting this to go to some kind of trial.

I think he's looking for some kind of settlement, some kind of agreement, some kind of arrangement where either the Wall Street Journal retracts what they've said or they qualify it.

Or even if it just carries on and on as these trials do for months and indeed years, it's sufficiently off-putting for other outlets who don't want to face the potential of either high levels of legal jeopardy or also just the time and resources that it will take to fight the case.

And that, again, has been very much Donald Trump style all throughout his adult life.

Dr. Richard Johnson, thank you very much indeed.

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Trump sues Murdoch and Wall Street Journal for $10bn over Epstein article | BBC News

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