Right-wing activist Riley Gaines urged President Donald Trump to sue media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who is Gaines’ boss, “into oblivion” after the Wall Street Journal published an explosive story about a “bawdy” letter that Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.
Newsweek reached out to the Journal‘s parent company, NewsCorp, for comment via email on Friday.
The Context
The president has raged against Murdoch and the Journal since the publication reported that Trump sent the late disgraced businessman and sex offender a letter for his 50th birthday that featured several lines of typewritten text surrounded by the outline of a naked woman, sketched in marker, and included Trump’s signature.
“Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,” the letter said, according to the report.
Trump told the Journal he would file a lawsuit if it published its story about the letter, which he said was “fake,” and added in a Truth Social post that the newspaper had put out “defamatory lies” about him.
What To Know
Gaines, an anti-trans activist and conservative influencer, is a host on the OutKick streaming service, which is owned by Murdoch’s Fox Corporation. The former competitive swimmer publicly backed Trump’s legal threats against her boss, NewsCorp and the Journal in a Thursday evening X post.
“Sue them into oblivion,” Gaines wrote, accompanied by a screenshot of Trump’s screen on Truth Social.
Her comments were a departure from statements she made one day earlier criticizing the president for calling members of the MAGA base “stupid and foolish” for being dissatisfied with the Department of Justice’s conclusion that Epstein died by suicide and that the government was not in possession of an “incriminating” list of his clients.
“Was it stupid & foolish when he campaigned on releasing the files?”Gaines wrote, referring to Trump. “Are [Attorney General] Pam Bondi, [FBI Director] Kash Patel, [FBI deputy director] Dan Bongino, and [interim U.S. attorney] Alina Habba all foolish & stupid for peddling this for the past 6 months? Why on earth is he doing this?”
Gaines’ criticism of the president added another layer to the firestorm of blowback Trump has gotten from his loyalists over the DOJ released its memo about Epstein last week. The two-page document flew in the face of years of conspiracy theories amplified by Trump’s allies—including Bondi, Patel and Vice President JD Vance—suggesting that Epstein was murdered as part of a vast government cover-up.
Trump, for his part, has alternated between saying there are no Epstein files, calling the investigation that his own officials hyped up a “hoax,” and claiming that the files are part of a Democratic effort to undermine his presidency.
The Journal‘s reporting, meanwhile, complicated the president’s efforts to distance himself from Epstein, whom he called a “creep” last week while denigrating the media’s focus on his administration’s handling of the investigation into the financier’s death.
The president said after the story was published that he had “personally” warned the outlet and Murdoch before they printed the report that he would sue them if they pressed ahead with publication, and said that Murdoch had assured him that he would “take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so.”
“The Press has to learn to be truthful, and not rely on sources that probably don’t even exist,” he wrote on Truth Social on Thursday evening, adding that he “looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal.”
What People Are Saying
Trump continued ripping the Journal over its report on Friday, writing on Truth Social: “If there was a ‘smoking gun’ on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the ‘files’ for four years, and had [then Attorney General Merrick] Garland and [former FBI Director James] Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X: “The Wall Street Journal published a hatchet job article with a FAKE ‘birthday letter’ that is supposedly from 2003 … The WSJ refused to show us the letter and conceded they don’t even have it in their possession when we asked them to verify the alleged document they’re basing their ENTIRE fake story on.”
She added: “When has President Trump ever spoken like the conversation alleged in the fake WSJ story? That’s not at all how he speaks or writes. The WSJ knowingly published false information to smear the President of the United States.”
Democratic Representative Sean Casten of Illinois wrote on X: “Like all things Trump, this is simultaneously disgusting and entirely unsurprising. He is exactly who we always understood him to be.”
What Happens Next
Trump on Thursday asked Bondi to produce “any and all” grand jury testimony relevant to the Epstein investigation to quell what he characterized as the “ridiculous” publicity the late convicted sex offender has gotten. Bondi subsequently said the DOJ would ask a court on Friday to unseal the grand jury records.
Read the full article here
