Trump threatens to sue The New York Times over reporting on Epstein note

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Sept 9 threatened to sue The New York Times for publishing articles related to a sexually suggestive note and drawing that was given to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and appears to have been signed by Mr Trump.

The note was released by Congress this week.

Mr Trump and his aides have denied that he was involved in the creation of the note, which was presented to Epstein as part of a gift for his 50th birthday in 2003. The White House described it as a fabrication.

Epstein was convicted in 2008 of soliciting a minor and was arrested again in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges. He died by suicide in jail that same year.

The Times reported in an article on Sept 8 that the signature on the Epstein note – the name “Donald,” with a long tail attached to the final “d” – closely resembled the signatures on personal notes that Mr Trump wrote to New York City officials from 1987 through 2001.

In a letter to the Times, a personal lawyer for Mr Trump cited that article, along with an article in July about the president’s penchant for making drawings with a thick black marker, as evidence of “malicious fabrications”.

The lawyer, Mr Edward Paltzik, requested a retraction and apology from the Times. He also raised the prospect that Mr Trump would file a US$10 billion (S$12.8 billion) lawsuit against the news organisation.

A spokesperson for the Times, Ms Danielle Rhoades Ha, responded on Sept 10: “Our journalists reported the facts, provided the visual evidence and printed the president’s denial. It’s all there for the American people to see and to make up their own minds about.”

“We will continue to pursue the facts without fear or favour and stand up for journalists’ First Amendment right to ask questions on behalf of the American people,” she added.

Mr Trump has consistently tried to delegitimise journalistic organisations that report on him and his administration. Recently, ABC and CBS each paid US$16 million to settle lawsuits that he brought against the networks.

In June, Mr Trump threatened to sue the Times and CNN for publishing articles concerning a preliminary intelligence report about an American attack on Iran nuclear sites, which ran counter to the president’s assertion that the Iranian nuclear program had been “obliterated”. (The head of the intelligence agency responsible for that report was later fired.)

Mr Trump has yet to file a lawsuit against either news outlet over the Iran matter.

The Epstein note is at the heart of a lawsuit that Mr Trump filed against The Wall Street Journal and its owner, Mr Rupert Murdoch, in July. The Journal was the first news outlet to report on the existence of the note, which includes an imagined conversation between Mr Trump and Epstein.

The Epstein note, which also includes a drawing of the outline of a naked woman, was released on Sept 8 by the House Oversight Committee, which had subpoenaed a batch of documents from Epstein’s estate. NYTIMES