this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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(archive) I'll edit this to include better links once better sources post them.

Raw Story cites and basically just restates a Reuters piece (archive), which is just a blurb (in both posts):

U.S. President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Friday against Dow Jones, News Corp (NWSA.O), Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal reporters, raising claims under federal libel law, court records show. A copy of the complaint was not immediately available. The case was filed in Miami federal court.

BBC has a live feed covering this and all sorts of Epstein related news.

Besides the Wall Street Journal's parent company and owner Rupert Murdoch, the two reporters who broke the story yesterday are also listed as defendants: Khadeeja Safdar and Joseph Palazzolo.

According to their staff profile on the paper's website, Safdar is an enterprise reporter based in New York while Palazzolo is an investigative reporter.

Palazzolo has won three Pulitzer Prizes, most recently this year, while Khadeeja Safdar was a finalist in 2020.

Here are a more complete stories and I'll leave it at that: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/18/trump-sues-epstein-murdoch-wsj.html

“To attempt and inextricably link President Trump to Epstein, Defendants Safdar and Palazzolo falsely claim that the salacious language of the letter is contained within a hand-drawn naked woman, which was created with a heavy marker,” the suit alleges.

“Worse, Defendants Safdar and Palazzolo falsely represent as fact that President Trump drew the naked woman’s breasts and signed his name ‘Donald’ below her waist, ‘mimicking pubic hair.’ ”

“Despite the glaring failures in journalistic ethics and standards of accurate reporting, Defendants Dow Jones and News Corp — at the direction of Defendants Murdoch and Thomson—published to the world the false, defamatory, and malignant statements authored by” the reporters, the suit says.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/18/trump-sues-wall-street-journal-over-alleged-epstein-letter-00464191

Trump filed the suit Friday, seeking at least $20 billion, in federal court in Miami, before announcing it in a post on Truth Social.

“This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of your favorite President, ME, but also in order to continue standing up for ALL Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media,” he wrote.

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[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 6 points 6 days ago

I'd like to see Murdoch get it just as much as the next person, but this isn't it. This just seems like Trump throwing yet another temper tantrum.

[–] Vodulas@beehaw.org 6 points 6 days ago

I gotta think someone like Murdoch knew Trump would do this since that is his typical MO. Especially since Trump said he was going to sue him before it ran. If that is true, seems likely Murdoch is holding something back