Has the Epstein affair strained Trump's cozy relationship with the Murdoch media empire?
To think, only months ago, at Jimmy Carter's funeral, Barack Obama and Donald Trump were laughing together in the pews.
But in Trump's latest attempt to deny and deflect when faced with controversy, he's calling for his first predecessor's prosecution over trying 'to rig the election' against him in 2016. Of course, Fox News, the crown jewel in Murdoch's wallet of media properties, has followed suit: in one of the days following the fallout from Epstein, mentions of Obama's name reportedly drowned out that of the convicted pedophile and suspected spy, by a score of 117 to two.
But there is trouble in paradise. Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (WSJ) broke the story that Trump allegedly penned a seedy birthday message to Epstein in 2003. The president then did what he does best: filed a libel suit for billions in damages.
'The Trump-Murdoch media dynasty has traditionally been a cozy one,' said Margot Susca, an assistant professor of journalism at American University and the author of Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy. 'Murdoch-owned Fox News serves up what amounts to state-owned television for Trump.'
At the outset of his second presidency, Trump named several Fox News personalities to his stable of figures in the administration, namely Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense who was a weekend host of Fox & Friends and has taken on his role at the Pentagon with the vigor expected of a veteran talking head.
'I'd like to believe the $10bn defamation lawsuit Trump filed against the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch for its Epstein coverage will serve as a wakeup call that Murdoch is not immune to Trump's press bullying,' she said, referring to the legion of ways Trump has imposed his will against the fifth estate. 'They should have favored press freedom and picked the press's role in democracy over access and cronyism.'
The White House, thus far, has had a direct line to the most influential broadcaster in the country.
Susca admitted that though the WSJ is a 'bright spot' among the 'lapdog coverage' for the president in the list of other Murdoch properties, Fox, the highest-rated news network in America, could easily be holding the government accountable day to day. But on the one hand, as Susca pointed out, Fox has 'barely mentioned' the defamation suit, while on the other, the WSJ 'still has its Epstein story posted'.
Trump, eager to escape the myriad and legitimate questions surrounding his well-documented former friendship with Epstein, has rallied all of his media and congressional troops to distract his associations with a conspiracy theory that he himself has stoked among his Maga disciples for years.
'Clearly, Trump wants to distract from the fact that he had a close and intimate friendship with Epstein, a billionaire pedophile that seemed to have set up a global trafficking ring,' said Edward Ongweso Jr, a senior researcher at Security in Context, an international project of scholars housed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 'And he wants to distract from the obvious implication of his about-face here (going from insisting the Epstein files will be released to insisting they never did and were invented by Democrats to take him down): that he's in them.'
Ongweso did note that Trump's continued ability to dodge becoming a casualty of the news cycle is unmatched: 'It is hard to imagine how any of his tactics will work, but then again he has gotten out of almost every single situation that would've doomed anyone else, hasn't he?'
But there's help already on the way for the president.
Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, issued a convenient end to the congressional session to avoid a vote on the floor for the release of all the Department of Justice files relating to Epstein, while Mike Flynn, former Trump national security adviser (turned QAnon peddler) and former general, has told followers Obama needs to go to jail over the years-old Mueller report of 2019.
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'The entire corrupt investigation was based on a fabricated lie that was part of a COUP by [Obama] to overthrow the United States,' he posted on X, before calling on the FBI and justice department to investigate and arrest the former president. 'EVIL PERSONIFIED!' he said in another post with hundreds of thousands of views. Flynn's endorsement of the Obama conspiracy was a sharp turn away from days of breathlessly begging for the release of the Epstein files.
But while the WSJ, a more independent and centrist publication in comparison with the rest of Murdoch's media empire, cast a stone against the president, Fox News is more than making up for it. Perhaps, that is, to avoid the fates of Paramount and ABC, which paid off Trump in large sums to settle suits that ultimately involved freedom of the press issues. Both networks stood to beat Trump on the facts of the cases, but avoided more litigation in what many have seen as a veritable bribe to a suit-happy and powerful president.
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'I think this is more about caution than falling in line, but I can't see how it will last,' Ongweso said, referring to Fox and its coverage of Obama over the more salacious and Maga topic of Epstein. 'He's been able to get Paramount and ABC to settle even though their cases were winnable.'
Last year, Murdoch's Fox decimated CNN on election night, scoring millions more viewers and having their hosts fawning over Trump, a far cry from when the network enraged him by declaring Arizona for Joe Biden in 2020 – ultimately ruling on who won the presidency.
Murdoch himself is rumored not to be a personal fan of Trump, reportedly backing Ron DeSantis, Florida's governor, for the presidency in the lead-up to the 2024 election, before switching sides again. Even his own immediate family has enjoyed cozy relationships with media companies that were firmly in the Democratic orbit.
Still, Ongweso believes WSJ reporters might smell blood in the water for the president and report on him accordingly.
'There has been a trickle of additional Epstein-Trump material, most recently the resurfacing of photos showing Epstein at Trump's 1993 wedding to Martha Maples,' he said. 'There is certainly more that WSJ reporters will uncover and unless there's editorial interference, I can't see how Murdoch's empire can stop itself from uttering his name again.'
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In a letter to the committee, her attorneys have asked for some immunity protections — and made another appeal to Trump for clemency. 'If Ms. Maxwell were to receive clemency, she would be willing — and eager — to testify openly and honestly, in public, before Congress in Washington, D.C.,' according to the letter, Maxwell's legal team provided to The Independent. 'She welcomes the opportunity to share the truth and to dispel the many misconceptions and misstatements that have plagued this case from the beginning.' Her attorneys insist she did not receive a fair trial, which served as a 'scapegoat' after Epstein's death. The Independent has requested comment from Maxwell's attorneys. A central question is whether she is telling the truth. Trump's own Justice Department in 2020 said she 'brazenly' lied under oath. The judge who oversaw her federal criminal case said she failed to show any 'acceptance of responsibility' for her actions. Oyer told CBS News that Maxwell is likely 'desperate to get out from under that sentence,' adding that 'it's hard to really believe that the Justice Department would rely on anything that she might have to say. 'She has a live criminal appeal. It doesn't make sense that she'd jeopardize it unless she gets some kind of immunity,' wrote journalist Jacob Shamsian, who extensively covered Maxwell's cases. 'And if she does, how can you trust her? She has every incentive in the world to get out of her 20-year sentence.' Democratic Senators Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse have sought a public commitment that the Justice Department will not advocate for a pardon or commute Maxwell's sentence. The senators called it 'highly unusual' for deputy attorney general Todd Blanche — Trump's former criminal defense attorney — to interview Maxwell, rather than the prosecutors who are familiar with the case. The Trump administration fired Maurene Comey, one of the prosecutors who successfully brought the case against Maxwell, and who questioned witnesses and abuse survivors who testified against her. Durbin and Whitehouse warned that her 'documented record of lying and her desire to secure early release' may lead her to 'provide false information or selectively withhold information in return for a pardon or sentence commutation.' When charges were first announced in July 2020, Trump — whose friendship with Epstein spanned roughly the same time period at the center of Maxwell's case — claimed that he wasn't 'following the case' but said 'I wish her well.' 'I just wish her well, frankly,' he told reporters at the White House at the time. 'I've met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is.' Last week, when asked whether he was considering pardoning her in exchange for her cooperation in the Epstein investigation, Trump said he was 'allowed to do it.' Later, he said he 'can't talk about pardons' while Blanche continues to speak with Maxwell. On Saturday, he said it was 'no time to be talking about pardons,' and on Monday, he stressed that he was 'allowed' to pardon Maxwell, 'but nobody has approached me with it.' Maxwell's trial was largely seen as the public reckoning against Epstein that the convicted sex offender never received. Epstein died in his jail cell in 2019 following his arrest before his own trial on sex trafficking charges. 'Ms. Maxwell is not punished in place of Epstein,' New York District Judge Alison Nathan said at her sentencing hearing in 2022. 'Ms. Maxwell is being punished for the role that she played.' Nathan called Maxwell's conduct 'heinous and predatory,' and the 20-year prison sentence imposed on her was intended to 'acknowledge the harm that Ms. Maxwell has caused.' The cases were also enmeshed in wider conspiracy theories amplified by the president and his allies that powerful Democratic figures are trafficking children, claims at the center of so-called 'Pizzagate' and QAnon communities that infected wider Republican politics. But the Trump administration's failure to release so-called 'files' surrounding the Epstein case, which critics had hoped to reveal public figures who exploited and abused young girls while, has fueled allegations that the president is participating in a cover up. After handing binders of mostly previously released evidence in the Epstein case to far-right influencers in February, Bondi reportedly told Trump his name appeared in unreleased files. The Justice Department had reportedly worked around clock to clear 100,000 files connected to the case for public release — but never released them. Elon Musk — who earlier this year tossed what he called a 'bomb' into his falling out with Trump by accusing the president of being in the 'files' — has amplified allegations that Maxwell intends to implicate Democratic officials in the investigation. The idea goes: spurious evidence presented by Maxwell would reaffirm the president's claims he did 'nothing wrong' during his relationship with Epstein while a guilty Trump reaps praise from his base for taking down pedophiles. On his X account, Musk responded to a viral post detailing the allegations with a bullseye emoji. Any revelations from Maxwell's testimony with the help of Trump, who is desperate to change the conversation, could generate a generate a storm of distractions. A pardon quid pro quo would risk political blowback for Trump and his enablers while adding more fuel to allegations of a cover up. Inflaming the tension is a report from The Wall Street Journal that accused the president of writing a bawdy birthday card to Epstein in 2003, which allegedly included 'several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman,' with a birthday wish that 'may every day be another wonderful secret.' Trump has denied ever writing such a note and sued the newspaper, its publishers and the journalists whose bylines appeared on the story for $10 billion. The person who could speak to the authenticity of that message and allegations against Trump is Maxwell, who allegedly asked for birthday greetings from Epstein's friends and put them together in a book for him. During a two-day interview with Blanche, Maxwell answered questions about 'about 100 different people' with potential ties to the Epstein ring, according to her attorney. In exchange, Maxwell was offered a limited form of immunity that would prevent prosecutors from using statements against her in a criminal case. Following her interview with Blanche, Markus said she answered 'all of the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability.'
