President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over a Jeffrey Epstein-related story seemed like a long shot from the moment it was filed last month. But the suit quickly raised an interesting prospect when Trump’s lawyers moved to speedily depose Rupert Murdoch, whose company publishes the Journal.
Yet, a joint stipulation from the parties this week shows that it won’t be happening immediately.
Among the reasons the president’s lawyers had cited in seeking the quick deposition was the 94-year-old civil defendant’s health.
“Murdoch recently turned 94 years old and has suffered, but thankfully overcome, multiple health issues throughout his life. Moreover, upon information and belief, Murdoch resides in New York, New York, which is well over 100 miles from this District,” they wrote in the motion, referring to the federal court district in Florida in which they filed the complaint.
“Thus, it is presumable, both because of his age and health and/or his distance from this Court, that Murdoch will be unavailable for trial,” Trump’s lawyers added.
Among the reasons the president’s lawyers had cited in seeking the quick deposition was the 94-year-old civil defendant’s health.
Trump filed the suit against Dow Jones & Company Inc., which publishes the Journal; News Corp., which owns Dow Jones; Murdoch, director and majority owner of News Corp.; News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson; and the reporters on the story in question, Khadeeja Safdar and Joseph Palazzolo.
That story, published last month, described what the paper called a “bawdy” letter bearing Trump’s name that was part of a collection of letters given to Epstein by friends of the now-deceased financier for his 50th birthday in 2003 (before his first arrest in 2006). Epstein died in 2019 while being held on sex trafficking charges, in what the medical examiner ruled a suicide.
The civil case proceeds against the backdrop of rare political backlash from Trump supporters, over his administration’s refusal to release all Epstein-related information as promised, as speculation mounts over what sort of deal, if any, his administration might strike with convicted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Getting back to the joint stipulation that avoids a quick Murdoch deposition, it says he will give Trump “a sworn declaration describing his current health condition,” as well as regular updates regarding his health, “including a mechanism for him to alert the Plaintiff if there is a material change in his health.” So even if Trump’s lawsuit is ultimately unsuccessful in securing the billions of dollars he’s after, as appears likely from the face of the complaint and the known facts to date, the case now serves, if nothing else, as an unlikely forum for the media mogul to update the president about his health. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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