White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said The Wall Street Journal has been removed from the press pool covering President Donald Trump’s Scotland trip because of the paper’s story about a sexually suggestive birthday letter Trump allegedly once gave Jeffrey Epstein.
“Due to the Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct, they will not be one of the thirteen outlets on board,” Leavitt said Monday in a statement, marking the latest instance of the White House blocking outlets from reporting opportunities.
“Every news organization in the entire world wishes to cover President Trump, and the White House has taken significant steps to include as many voices as possible,” she continued.
The Journal declined to comment Monday.
Leavitt added the outlets allowed to cover the trip ― which is set to run from Friday through the following Tuesday ― will be “diverse.” Trump has visits scheduled to Turnberry and Aberdeen, home to Trump golf courses, and to meet with United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer to discuss the U.S.-UK trade deal.
The retaliation against the Journal comes days after Trump filed a lawsuit against the reporters who wrote the story and the paper’s owners, saying the letter is a fabrication.
“Defendants concocted this story to malign President Trump’s character and integrity and deceptively portray him in a false light,” says the lawsuit, which seeks at least $10 billion in damages. The lawsuit claims the story was “malicious, deliberate, and despicable” and that it will cause “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” to the president.
Trump announced the complaint in a rage-filled Truth Social post.
“This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of your favorite President, ME, but also in order to continue standing up for ALL Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media,” he wrote.
The 2003 letter the Journal exposed includes the drawing of an outline of a naked woman’s body and a cryptic message to the late sex offender reading: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” The message features Trump’s signature, though he asserts he had nothing to do with the note or the drawing.
“I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women,” he told the Journal. “It’s not my language. It’s not my words.”
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The letter reportedly was among the materials reviewed by the Justice Department during an earlier investigation of Epstein, who hanged himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on sweeping sex trafficking charges. It’s unclear if it’s one of the records recently reviewed by Trump’s Justice Department, which shocked the president’s base when it announced it wasn’t released anymore Epstein files and was effectively closing the case earlier this month.