President Donald Trump filed a libel lawsuit against the publisher of the Wall Street Journal and reporters who wrote a story about a collection of letters gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003, including a note bearing Trump’s name and an outline of a naked woman.
The lawsuit, which seeks at least $10 billion, is an extraordinary escalation of Trump’s ongoing legal campaign against media companies he views as opponents. Trump has denied that he wrote the note.
In the 18-page filing, Trump’s legal team accuses the Journal’s parent company of engaging in “glaring failures in journalistic ethics and standards of accurate reporting.” The filing notes that the Journal, in its story, did not publish the drawing or the letter that its reporters allege Trump authored.
“The reason for those failures is because no authentic letter or drawing exists,” Trump’s lawyer wrote.
Trump had threatened to sue almost immediately after the story, which was written by Journal reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo, was published late Thursday afternoon. Both reporters are named as defendants in the lawsuit.