A gay Obama-appointed judge will preside over Donald Trump’s libel lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal over claims the president once sent an NSFW birthday card and doodle to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

Trump is suing for $10 billion after denying he ever wrote the letter, and now Judge Darrin Gayles, who became the first out gay Black man appointed as a federal judge, has been assigned to the case. 

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The Senate unanimously confirmed Gayles after he was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2014. Politico pointed out he earned such widespread support for being relatively bipartisan. Two Republican governors – Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist — appointed him to Florida state judgeships before Obama appointed him to the federal bench.

The lawsuit stems from a July 17 article in The Wall Street Journal, which allegedthat Trump contributed to a book of racy letters for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. The article described Trump’s letter as containing “several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker.”

“A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts,” the description adds, “and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.”

The Journal also reported that the letter said, “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey… A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” 

Trump has ardently denied he wrote the letter, calling the story “fake” and claiming, “I don’t draw pictures of women.”

The president has found himself in hot water over his connections to Epstein and his administration’s recent refusal to release case files that it has long promised to share. MAGA conspiracy theorists have been chomping at the bit for the Epstein files, and many are turning on Trump as he doubles down on his administration’s decision.

Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors. While the medical examiner determined that his death was a suicide, many people, especially on the right, do not believe that it was, instead asserting that he was killed to keep him silent about the clients for whom he found children to sexually abuse.

Many officials associated with Trump had spent years repeating the same rumors, and Trump himself said repeatedly in 2024 that the “Epstein list” needed to be released.

In February, Attorney General Bondi said that she was reviewing “a lot of names” related to the Epstein investigation and said that the Epstein list is “sitting on my desk right now to review.”

But last week, the Department of Justice released a memo that said there was no “secret client list” and reaffirmed the 2019 finding that Epstein died by suicide. Many Trump supporters were outraged that the rumored client list wouldn’t be released, while many on the left speculated that the reason Bondi wasn’t releasing it is because Trump himself – or at least high-ranking members of his administration – is on it.

Trump had a decades-long friendship with Epstein and joked about how his friend was “fun” and “terrific” and liked women “on the younger side.” Trump has also been found liable for sexual abuse by a jury, has admitted to sexually assaulting women in the past, and has admitted to walking in on underage girls as they changed clothes. He has been accused of sexual assault or other forms of sexual impropriety by at least 27 women.