Rupert Murdoch looks on, at the White House, in Washington, U.S. February 3, 2025. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
Calling it a threat to free speech, The Wall Street Journal has asked a judge to toss out President Donald Trump's lawsuit over their blockbuster report tying him to the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, reports The Hill.
The lawsuit, in which Trump called the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper "third rate" was filed in July and alleged libel against Murdoch and WSJ parent company Dow Jones.
“In an affront to the First Amendment, the President of the United States brought this lawsuit to silence a newspaper for publishing speech that was subsequently proven true by documents released by Congress to the American public," wrote the newspaper's legal team in a Monday filing.
Trump, who claimed that his cartoon contribution to Epstein's 50th birthday book wasn't his and called it a "liberal hoax," has had a hard time distancing himself from the WSJ story.
After the Journal’s story was published, however, the Epstein estate released a copy of the letter to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committe
"This was in the Epstein estate since 2003. That'd be quite the long game to try to to get President Trump if this was indeed a hoax, to plant a birthday card more than two decades ago, and the Journal did a very good job," MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire said.
In its filing to dismiss the lawsuit, WSJ attorneys said that Trump "was trying to suppress journalism that is unflattering to him," saying, “By its very nature, this meritless lawsuit threatens to chill the speech of those who dare to publish content that the President does not like."