𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Reporters from The Wall Street Journal have been removed from a pool of journalists covering Donald Trump’s upcoming trip to Scotland in the wake of the newspaper’s reporting on the president’s alleged 50th birthday card to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The reporters’ removal, first reported by Politico, also follows the president’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the newspaper and the journalists who wrote the story, as well as right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch and parent companies News Corp and Dow Jones.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement shared with The Independent that neither the newspaper nor “any other news outlet are not guaranteed special access to cover President Trump in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One, and in his private workspaces.”

“Due to the Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct, they will not be one of the [13] outlets on board,” she said. “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.”

Dow Jones, which publishes the newspaper, declined to comment.

The Independent has requested comment from the White House Correspondents Association.

Trump’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami on July 18, claims the newspaper, its parent companies, executives and journalists falsely smeared the president by accusing him of writing a sexually suggestive birthday card to Epstein in 2003.

The birthday greeting is described by the newspaper as also including a birthday wish that says “may every day be another wonderful secret.”

A letter reportedly bearing Trump’s name, which the WSJ report claims was reviewed by the newspaper, contains several lines of typewritten text framed by a drawing of a naked woman. His signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair, according to the report.

The defendants “failed to attach the letter, failed to attach the alleged drawing, failed to show proof that President Trump authored or signed any such letter, and failed to explain how this purported letter was obtained,” according to Trump’s lawsuit.

“The reason for those failures is because no authentic letter or drawing exists,” the complaint claims.

Trump’s relationship with Epstein — who was accused of sexually abusing dozens of minors before he was found dead in his jail cell in 2019 — has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks following a Department of Justice memo that says no such “list” of Epstein’s alleged clients exists, despite demands from Trump’s supporters and allies for a full accounting of Epstein’s death and alleged ties to a wider child trafficking conspiracy implicating powerful figures.

The White House has previously reprimanded Associated Press reporters and blocked them from covering White House events after the news agency said it would continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its copy while noting that Trump had issued an order attempting to rename the body of water as the Gulf of America.

In June, a 2-1 decision on a three-judge federal appellate court panel paused a lower-court ruling that had determined the White House had improperly punished the outlet over the content of its speech. The two judges who agreed to block that lower-court ruling were appointed by Trump in his first term.

Leavitt pointed to that ruling in her statement Monday.

The earlier ruling from Judge Trevor N. McFadden, another Trump appointee, said the First Amendment forbids the White House from trying to “shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints.”