Attorneys for President Trump and Rupert Murdoch have agreed to delay a deposition Trump’s team wants the media mogul to sit for as part of the president’s lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal.
Trump’s legal team last month asked for Murdoch, whose News Corp acquired the Journal in 2007, to sit for a speedy deposition in the case, citing his age and health concerns.
But in a filing with the court on Monday, the two parties agreed not to move forward with discovery and evidence gathering, putting any chance of the 94-year-old conservative media tycoon giving sworn testimony on hold for now.
This lawsuit arose from The Wall Street Journal’s article that described an album allegedly compiled by Epstein’s former girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell for his 50th birthday in 2003.
According to the report, Trump contributed a letter for the birthday collection that included a lewd drawing and referenced the two men sharing a “wonderful secret.” President Trump has dismissed the letter as fake.
The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is crude—like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.
Trump filed the complaint in federal court in Miami last month against the Journal, the Journal’s publishing firm Dow Jones, parent company News Corp, owner Rupert Murdoch, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson, and the two Journal reporters, Safdar and Palazzolo. He alleges two claims, defamation per se and defamation per quod, and demands $10 billion in damages.
