President Donald Trump urged a judge to let him continue a $10 billion libel lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch over a Wall Street Journal article claiming he sent a bawdy birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein, saying the news outlet still hasn't been able to prove the letter is real.
An identical birthday note handed over to the House Oversight Committee by the Epstein estate does not prove that Trump actually wrote and sent the letter, the president's lawyer said in a filing Monday, urging the court to deny Murdoch and News Corp.'s request to dismiss the case.
"On the contrary, the defendants' reliance on a purported letter released over a month after the complaint was filed proves that defendants did not actually possess, or even review, any purported letter before publishing the false and defamatory article," Alejandro Brito, Trump's lawyer, said.
News Corp didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the filing.
The report, which described a 2003 note containing a sketch of a naked woman that bore Trump's signature and was compiled with other letters into a "birthday book" for Epstein's 50th birthday, was published amid a firestorm of criticism over the Trump administration's handling of documents from the financier's criminal case.
Trump claimed in his suit that he never wrote the letter and accused News Corp. and its chairman emeritus of defaming him. The media giant asked a judge to dismiss the suit last month, arguing that the July 17 article was bolstered when the Epstein estate gave the note to the House committee investigating the deceased financier's sex-trafficking.
In his suit, the president, who has claimed he cut ties with Epstein nearly two decades ago, accused Murdoch and News Corp. of trying to malign his character. Brito said in Monday's filing that the article was an attempt "to wrongly and inextricably" link Trump to Epstein.
"It is clear that the article intended to subject President Trump to public hatred and ridicule," the lawyer. "Defendants did not publish the article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal based on a mere harmless joke between friends."
Murdoch and News Corp. have stood by the accuracy of the story, noting that Trump "acknowledged his friendship with Epstein."
Lawyers for News Corp. and its 94-year-old chairman emeritus have called Trump's suit an attempt to chill the media's critical reporting on the president. It's one of several cases Trump has brought against the media, including a $15 billion lawsuit accusing the New York Times of smearing his reputation with false stories.
"As the article reports, three months before the Birthday Book was gifted to Epstein, a New York magazine article quoted the plaintiff as saying that he had known Epstein for '15 years' and that Epstein was a 'terrific guy,' 'a lot of fun to be with,' and 'likes beautiful women as much as I do,'" Murdoch and News Corp. said in their earlier filing.
The dispute emerged as Democrats and some Republicans continue to call on the Trump administration to release any and all Epstein records held by the government, beyond the thousands of documents already made public.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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