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Donald Trump has threatened to sue Rupert Murdoch over what he calls a “false, malicious, defamatory story”, as the US president seeks to tamp down controversy over a story run in the Wall Street Journal that he allegedly contributed a “bawdy” birthday note for Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, replete with a sketch of a naked woman’s silhouette. Trump said in a post to Truth Social that he had personally told the Journal’s owner, Murdoch, and editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, that the letter was fake and that he would sue if a story about the letter was published.