President Donald Trump’s legal team has requested an expedited deposition of media mogul Rupert Murdoch in the president’s $10 billion libel lawsuit against Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal. The suit centers on an article published earlier in July that claimed Trump wrote Jeffrey Epstein a sexually suggestive birthday letter in 2003. Trump has denied the claim.
Motion highlights Murdoch’s age and health
In a federal court filing Monday, July 28, Trump’s lawyers asked a judge to require Murdoch to sit for a deposition within 15 days. The motion argues that Murdoch’s advanced age and health issues make his testimony urgent.
“Murdoch is 94 years old, has suffered from multiple health issues throughout his life, is believed to have suffered recent significant health scares… Taken together, these factors weigh heavily in determining that Murdoch would be unavailable for in-person testimony at trial,” the filing states.
Murdoch’s access to information cited
Trump is suing Murdoch and his company, News Corp, which owns Dow Jones and Company, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal. These entities are all named in the lawsuit, along with the two reporters who authored the Epstein birthday card story.
The motion contends that Murdoch holds the keys to the story’s origin and is in a position to access all documents related to the article’s creation, from inception to publication.
“Murdoch has an advantage over President Trump as Murdoch is able to defend himself because he has access to all the information and documents related to the below-defined malicious and defamatory Article, and the decision behind deciding to publish it,” the motion stated.
Trump’s legal team also dismissed the article’s claims as baseless, writing, “if the purported letter in the Article somehow actually exists, which it does not, and the Defendants have it in their possession, which they do not, Murdoch has easy access to it.”
Responses and next steps
Murdoch and his companies have not issued a statement regarding Trump’s motion to expedite the deposition, but the filing states that the media mogul’s attorneys oppose the expedited testimony Trump is seeking.
However, a Dow Jones spokesperson responded to the initial lawsuit, saying, “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”
The federal judge assigned to the case has ordered Murdoch’s legal team to respond to Trump’s motion by Aug. 4.
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Author: Cole Lauterbach
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