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Murdoch’s Trump-Epstein Game Theory

The president’s attorneys could seize on the mogul’s advanced age for expedited examination of his dealing with ‘Wall Street Journal’ executives. For their part, the defendants might welcome discovery—especially if it involves Epstein-related D.O.J. files.

Rupert Murdoch
Lawyers for Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Journal via his News Corp, will pounce on all of it: the ambiguities, the absence of defamatory sting, the lack of “actual malice,” and, perhaps most glaringly under Florida law, Trump’s failure to provide the required five-day notice before filing suit. Photo: Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Eriq Gardner
July 22, 2025

Donald Trump’s latest legal tantrum—his $10 billion defamation suit against The Wall Street Journal, for its piece about a Jeffrey Epstein birthday card that the president swears he never wrote—may end up backfiring, triggering the exposure that Trump has spent years trying to avoid. As defamation suits go, this one isn’t particularly strong. If it gets past early hurdles, however, it could lead to sustained, sworn scrutiny of his relationship with the convicted sex offender who traveled in the same Upper East Side and Palm Beach circles.