logo
Trump suing Murdoch's WSJ over Epstein claim

Trump suing Murdoch's WSJ over Epstein claim

US President Donald Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal and its owners including Rupert Murdoch over the newspaper's report that Trump in 2003 sent Jeffrey Epstein a birthday greeting that included a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to secrets they shared.
Trump filed the lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of Florida on Friday against Dow Jones, News Corp, Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal reporters, accusing the defendants of defamation and saying they acted with malicious intent that caused him overwhelming financial and reputational harm.
He is seeking at least $US10 billion ($NZ16.7 billion) in damages.
Trump, 79, has vehemently denied the Journal report, which Reuters has not verified, and warned Murdoch, the founder of News Corp, that he planned to sue. Dow Jones, the parent of the newspaper, is a division of News Corp.
"I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his 'pile of garbage' newspaper, the WSJ. That will be an interesting experience!!!" Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday morning.
Representatives of Dow Jones, News Corp and Murdoch could not be reached for comment.
Disgraced financier and sex offender Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019. He was 66.
The case has generated conspiracy theories that became popular among Trump's base of supporters who believed the government was covering up Epstein's ties to the rich and powerful.
Some of Trump's most loyal followers became furious after his administration reversed course on its promise to release files related to the Epstein investigation.
A Justice Department memo released on July 7 concluded that Epstein killed himself and said there was "no incriminating client list" or evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent people.
Attorney General Pam Bondi had pledged months earlier to reveal major revelations about Epstein, including "a lot of names" and "a lot of flight logs."
With pressure to release the Epstein files building, Trump on Thursday said he directed Bondi to ask a court to release grand jury testimony about Epstein.
The United States government on Friday filed a motion in Manhattan federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts in the cases of Epstein and his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who in 2021 was convicted of five federal charges related to her role in Epstein's sexual abuse of underage girls. The 63-year-old former socialite is serving a 20-year sentence.
"Public officials, lawmakers, pundits, and ordinary citizens remain deeply interested and concerned about the Epstein matter," Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the filing. "After all, Jeffrey Epstein is the most infamous paedophile in American history."
Blanche called the transcripts "critical pieces of an important moment in our nation's history," and said "the time for the public to guess what they contain should end."
He said prosecutors would work to redact all victim-identifying information before making anything public.
BAWDY LETTER
The Journal said the letter bearing Trump's name was part of a leather-bound birthday book for Epstein that included messages from other high-profile people.
The newspaper said the letter contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appeared to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. It said the letter concludes "Happy Birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret," and featured the signature "Donald."
Allegations that Epstein had been sexually abusing girls became public in 2006 - after the birthday book was allegedly produced - and he was arrested that year before accepting a plea deal. Epstein died just over a month after he was arrested for a second time and charged with sex-trafficking conspiracy.
Trump, who was photographed with Epstein multiple times in social situations in the 1990s and early 2000s, told reporters in 2019 that he ended his relationship with Epstein before his legal troubles became apparent.
In 2002 Trump, a Florida neighbour of Epstein's, was quoted in New York magazine as saying, "I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office in 2019, Trump said he and Epstein had a "falling out" before the financier was first arrested.
Trump said he "knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him" but that, "I had a falling out with him. I haven't spoken to him in 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you."
WHAT TRANSCRIPTS COULD SHOW
The release of the grand jury documents may fall short of what many of Trump's supporters have sought, including case files held by the administration.
Grand juries review evidence from prosecutors to determine whether people should be indicted for crimes. This includes hearsay, improperly obtained information and other evidence that prosecutors would not be allowed to present at trial.
Transcripts of grand jury proceedings are generally kept secret under federal criminal procedure rules, with limited exceptions.
A judge may allow disclosure of grand jury matters in connection with judicial proceedings, or at the request of defendants who believe it could lead to the dismissal of their indictments.
It is likely that some material released from grand jury proceedings would be redacted, or blacked out, because of privacy or security concerns.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

US 'will sell so much' beef to Australia after relaxed restrictions: Trump
US 'will sell so much' beef to Australia after relaxed restrictions: Trump

Otago Daily Times

time13 hours ago

  • Otago Daily Times

US 'will sell so much' beef to Australia after relaxed restrictions: Trump

The United States will sell "so much" beef to Australia, US President Donald Trump said today after Canberra relaxed import restrictions. He added that other countries that refused US beef products were on notice. Australia on Thursday said it would loosen biosecurity rules for US beef, something analysts predicted would not significantly increase US shipments because Australia is a major beef producer and exporter whose prices are much lower. "We are going to sell so much to Australia because this is undeniable and irrefutable Proof that US Beef is the Safest and Best in the entire World," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "The other Countries that refuse our magnificent Beef are ON NOTICE," the post continued. Trump has attempted to renegotiate trade deals with numerous countries he says have taken advantage of the United States – a characterisation many economists dispute. "For decades, Australia imposed unjustified barriers on US beef," US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement, calling Australia's decision a "major milestone in lowering trade barriers and securing market access for US farmers and ranchers." Australia is not a significant importer of beef, but the United States is, and a production slump is forcing it to step up purchases. Last year, Australia shipped almost 400,000 metric tons of beef worth $US2.9 billion ($NZ4.8 billion) to the United States, with just 269 tons of US product moving the other way. Australian officials say the relaxation of restrictions was not part of any trade negotiations but the result of a years-long assessment of US biosecurity practices. Canberra has restricted US beef imports since 2003 due to concerns about bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. Since 2019, it has allowed in meat from animals born, raised and slaughtered in the US but few suppliers were able to prove that their cattle had not been in Canada and Mexico. On Wednesday, Australia's agriculture ministry said US cattle traceability and control systems had improved enough that Australia could accept beef from cattle born in Canada or Mexico and slaughtered in the United States. The decision has caused some concern in Australia, where biosecurity is seen as essential to prevent diseases and pests from ravaging the farm sector. "We need to know if [the government] is sacrificing our high biosecurity standards just so Prime Minister Anthony Albanese can obtain a meeting with US President Donald Trump," shadow agriculture minister David Littleproud said in a statement. Australia, which imports more from the US than it exports, faces a 10% across-the-board US tariff, as well 50% tariffs on steel and aluminium. Trump has also threatened to impose a 200% tariff on pharmaceuticals. Asked whether the change would help achieve a trade deal, Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell said: "I'm not too sure." "We haven't done this in order to entice the Americans into a trade agreement," he said. "We think that they should do that anyway."

Trump targets ‘woke AI' with new federal contract rules
Trump targets ‘woke AI' with new federal contract rules

NZ Herald

time17 hours ago

  • NZ Herald

Trump targets ‘woke AI' with new federal contract rules

Experts on the technology say the answer to both questions is murky. Some lawyers say the prospect of the Trump Administration shaping what AI chatbots can and can't say raises First Amendment issues. Experts warn the order raises First Amendment issues and question the feasibility of bias-free AI. Photo / Getty Images 'These are words that seem great – 'free of ideological bias,'' said Rumman Chowdhury, executive director of the non-profit Humane Intelligence and former head of machine learning ethics at Twitter. 'But it's impossible to do in practice.' The concern that popular AI tools exhibit a liberal skew took hold on the right in 2023, when examples circulated on social media of OpenAI's ChatGPT endorsing affirmative action and transgender rights or refusing to compose a poem praising Trump. It gained steam last year when Google's Gemini image generator was found to be injecting ethnic diversity into inappropriate contexts – such as portraying black, Asian and Native American people in response to requests for images of Vikings, Nazis or America's 'Founding Fathers'. Google apologised and reprogrammed the tool, saying the outputs were an inadvertent by-product of its effort to ensure that the product appealed to a range of users around the world. ChatGPT and other AI tools can indeed exhibit a liberal bias in certain situations, said Fabio Motoki, a lecturer at the University of East Anglia. In a study published last month, he and his co-authors found that OpenAI's GPT-4 responded to political questionnaires by evincing views that aligned closely with those of the average Democrat. But assessing a chatbot's political leanings 'is not straightforward', he added. On certain topics, such as the need for US military supremacy, OpenAI's tools tend to produce writing and images that align more closely with Republican views. And other research, including an analysis by the Washington Post, has found that AI image generators often reinforce ethnic, religious and gender stereotypes. AI models exhibit all kinds of biases, experts say. It's part of how they work. Chatbots and image generators draw on vast quantities of data ingested from across the internet to predict the most likely or appropriate response to a user's query. So they might respond to one prompt by spouting misogynist tropes gleaned from an unsavoury anonymous forum – then respond to a different prompt by regurgitating DEI policies scraped from corporate hiring policies. Trump's AI plan: Federal contracts for bias-free models only. Photo / 123RF Training an AI model to avoid such biases is notoriously tricky, Motoki said. You could try to do it by limiting the training data, paying humans to rate its answers for neutrality, or writing explicit instructions into its code. All three approaches come with limitations and have been known to backfire by making the model's responses less useful or accurate. 'It's very, very difficult to steer these models to do what we want,' he said. Google's Gemini blooper was one example. Another came this year, when Elon Musk's xAI instructed its Grok chatbot to prioritise 'truth-seeking' over political correctness – leading it to spout racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and at one point even refer to itself as 'mecha-Hitler'. The Google Gemini app, an AI-based, multimodal chatbot developed by Google. Photo / Getty Images Political neutrality, for an AI model, is simply 'not a thing', Chowdhury said. 'It's not real.' For example, she said, if you ask a chatbot for its views on gun control, it could equivocate by echoing both Republican and Democratic talking points, or it might try to find the middle ground between the two. But the average AI user in Texas might see that answer as exhibiting a liberal bias, while a New Yorker might find it overly conservative. And to a user in Malaysia or France, where strict gun control laws are taken for granted, the same answer would seem radical. How the Trump Administration will decide which AI tools qualify as neutral is a key question, said Samir Jain, vice-president of policy at the non-profit Centre for Democracy and Technology. The executive order itself is not neutral, he said, because it rules out certain left-leaning viewpoints but not right-leaning viewpoints. The order lists 'critical race theory, transgenderism, unconscious bias, intersectionality, and systemic racism' as concepts that should not be incorporated into AI models. 'I suspect they would say anything providing information about transgender care would be 'woke,'' Jain said. 'But that's inherently a point of view.' Imposing that point of view on AI tools produced by private companies could run the risk of a First Amendment challenge, he said, depending on how it's implemented. 'The Government can't force particular types of speech or try to censor particular viewpoints, as a general matter,' Jain said. However, the Administration does have some latitude to set standards for the products it purchases, provided its speech restrictions are related to the purposes for which it's using them. Some analysts and advocates said they believe Trump's executive order is less heavy-handed than they had feared. Neil Chilson, head of AI policy at the right-leaning non-profit Abundance Institute, said the prospect of an overly prescriptive order on 'woke AI' was the one element that had worried him in advance of Trump's AI plan, which he generally supported. After reading the order, he said that those concerns were 'overblown' and he believes the order 'will be straightforward to comply with'. Mackenzie Arnold, director of US policy at the Institute for Law and AI, a nonpartisan think-tank, said he was glad to see the order makes allowances for the technical difficulty of programming AI tools to be neutral and offers a path for companies to comply by disclosing their AI models' instructions. 'While I don't like the styling of the EO on 'preventing woke AI' in government, the actual text is pretty reasonable,' he said, adding that the big question is how the Administration will enforce it. 'If it focuses its efforts on these sensible disclosures, it'll turn out okay,' he said. 'If it veers into ideological pressure, that would be a big misstep and bad precedent.'

The case of Dahud Hanid Ortiz, a US-Venezuelan citizen brought home in Trump's prisoner swap
The case of Dahud Hanid Ortiz, a US-Venezuelan citizen brought home in Trump's prisoner swap

NZ Herald

time17 hours ago

  • NZ Herald

The case of Dahud Hanid Ortiz, a US-Venezuelan citizen brought home in Trump's prisoner swap

'The US has been completely silent, not giving information to anyone,' Victor Joel Salas Covenas, a lawyer in Spain who was targeted by Hanid Ortiz in the 2016 plot, told the Washington Post today. 'At this moment, no one knows Dahud's whereabouts. So the fear is real, isn't it? Of course.' Hanid Ortiz, 54, had been left behind on previous swaps brokered by both the Trump and Biden administrations, said a US official with knowledge of internal discussions in the wake of his release. The Administration's suspected failure to properly vet Hanid Ortiz before allowing him to board the Gulfstream jet that left Caracas for Texas on July 18 also has caused a rift within the State Department, which led the negotiations central to last week's prisoner swap. The US official acknowledged that Hanid Ortiz's inclusion in the release was 'ruffling a lot of feathers' at the department because the dual US-Venezuelan citizen was never on lists of Americans whom the Trump Administration sought from Venezuelan authorities. 'It seems like no one was checking closely,' said the official. Spokespeople for the State Department and White House have cited 'privacy reasons' for refusing to address the growing maelstrom surrounding Hanid Ortiz's release. In response to questions, Administration officials issued a statement saying, 'The US had the opportunity to secure the release of all Americans detained in Venezuela, many of whom reported being subjected to torture and other harsh conditions'. Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela's Interior Minister, said yesterday on his weekly broadcast that the Venezuelan Government had warned US officials at the airport that they were 'taking away a convicted murderer'. 'The US defended their murderer and asked for him to be included,' Cabello alleged. Efforts to speak with Hanid Ortiz's family in the US have been unsuccessful. The questions surrounding Hanid Ortiz have overshadowed what otherwise was seen in Washington as a significant foreign policy win by the Administration. He was among a group of 10 US citizens and permanent residents released by Venezuela. The deal also sent to Venezuela more than 250 Venezuelan nationals who had been deported by the US to a megaprison in El Salvador as part of Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown. The Trump Administration has not identified the Americans released in the deal, though it has acknowledged that eight of the 10 had been classified as 'wrongfully detained' by the State Department. That designation enables use of government resources to help free US people it believes should not be imprisoned abroad. Those classified as 'wrongfully detained' are offered support services upon their return at the Brooke Army Medical Centre in San Antonio. Two US officials said that Hanid Ortiz was not offered these services. And that's where the trail runs cold. Hanid Ortiz was last seen publicly as he waved to the news media in San Antonio after arriving with the other released prisoners. His presence among the group was first detected by media outlets in Spain. He did not get off the plane during a brief stop in El Salvador, said the US official. There, some of the other prisoners met with the country's President, Nayib Bukele, a key Trump ally, this person said. The situation is seen as pressing, given the nature of the crimes for which Hanid Ortiz was convicted, which were detailed in a Venezuelan court last year. According to court records, Hanid Ortiz had been living in Germany when he came to suspect his wife was having a relationship with Salas Covenas, the lawyer in Madrid. The court found that Hanid Ortiz travelled to Spain to take revenge on the lawyer, concealing his visit by recruiting a friend to pretend to be him at home so he had an alibi. When he arrived at Salas Covenas' law office, Hanid Ortiz asked two employees to contact the lawyer, saying he was exploring a lucrative business deal, court records show. The two women were killed with a knife and a blunt object before the slaying of a man who arrived at the law office to pick up some documents, an apparent instance of mistaken identity, the court records say. The court found that Hanid Ortiz then set fire to the law office in a bid to hide the crime. It was his accomplice in Germany who revealed the plot to authorities, court records say. The court documents also show that Hanid Ortiz admitted to the crime in emails to his sister-in-law. 'I did horrible things without wanting to, or whatever. Believe me, people lose their minds - I did,' he wrote in one email contained in the court records documenting his prosecution and conviction. Hanid Ortiz was arrested after fleeing to Venezuela in 2018, court records show. He was in possession of three national identity cards, one in his name and two bearing other names, according to the court records. Venezuela's constitution bars extradition of citizens, so instead he was tried in a Venezuelan court with Spanish and German officials supplying evidence. He was convicted and sentenced last year. Though born in Venezuela, court records show that Hanid Ortiz served in the US Army for more than 17 years and became a US citizen. He moved with the Army to Germany, where court documents show he was court-martialled and convicted of using a fraudulent address in New York City to claim housing allowances for his family, who had moved with him overseas. His release back to the US has caught senior government officials in Spain and Germany completely caught off guard, according to the US official familiar with discussions about Hanid Ortiz occurring at the State Department. The Spanish and German embassies declined to comment. The US generally does not extradite its own citizens to face crimes in foreign nations. Salas Covenas, the Spanish lawyer, said he was first contacted on Monday by German police. They told him Hanid Ortiz was at a military base in Texas and that it was 'very likely he would be released', Salas Covenas said. 'The only thing we know for sure is that he got off the plane; a camera caught him laughing,' he added. 'Obviously, he is mocking the entire American, European and Venezuelan judicial systems.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store