JD Vance visited Murdoch ranch one month before Epstein revelations
The vice president spoke with the 94-year-old media mogul, his son Lachlan Murdoch and a group of other Fox News executives at the $280 million estate on June 11, sources told the Associated Press around the time of the visit last month.
The exact nature of the meeting and Vance's conversation with the group was not disclosed - but it appeared to be brief. Murdoch and other top executives are known for hosting powerful politicians across the summer at their sprawling estates.
According to flight restrictions issued by the Federal Aviation Administration, the vice presidential aircraft, Air Force Two, was only on the ground for a matter of hours.
It landed in Butte – which is approximately 70 miles from the Murdoch ranch – around 2.30pm, according to NBC Montana.
Murdoch bought the 340,000-acre Beaverhead cattle ranch from the billionaire Koch family, which had owned the property for 70 years, in 2021.
The ranch, located near Yellowstone National Park, is one of the largest in the state, and has a nearly 28-mile long private trout fishing river and is populated by elk, antelope and mule deer.
After the Murdoch meeting, the vice president and his wife, Usha, then took a hike, Montana State Auditor James Brown, who helped plan the trip, told Montana Talks.
Air Force Two then departed shortly after nightfall, an airport source told Politico's West Wing Playbook.
Murdoch and his media organization have long been friendly with Republicans and the Trump administration.
He appeared at Trump's inauguration and was spotted earlier this year in the Oval Office.
However, their relationship has appeared to have soured and Trump launched a blistering attack on Murdoch's newspaper the Wall Street Journal.
One month after Vance's mysterious meeting, the Journal reported that Trump sent Epstein the card in 2003 as part of a collection collated by Ghislaine Maxwell.
Trump has furiously denied the allegations and hit the newspaper and its owner with a $10 billion lawsuit.
Trump's lawsuit, obtained by DailyMail.com, shows the libel suit filed in the Southern District of Florida against WSJ, Dow Jones, Rupert Murdoch and the paper's reporters who published the story in what Trump called a 'powerhouse' suit on Truth Social.
Trump is requesting a jury trial and is suing 'for damages, punitive damages, court costs, and such other relief as the Court deems just and proper, not to be less than $10 billion dollars.'
A bombshell report in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday claimed Trump wrote a 'bawdy' 50th birthday card to Epstein, which concluded: 'Happy Birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret.'
The newspaper said it had reviewed a typewritten letter bearing Trump's signature, framed by the seemingly hand-drawn outline of a naked woman, that Ghislaine Maxwell included in a 2003 birthday album.
In the text, the paper claimed Trump wrote: 'We have certain things in common, Jeffrey' and that both of them know that 'there must be more to life than having everything.'
The message is said to have included an X-rated drawing of a naked woman, with Trump's famous signature squiggle written across her genitals to mimic pubic hair.
According to the Journal, the naked woman appeared to have been hand-drawn with a marker, with a pair of arcs indicating the woman's breasts and a squiggly signature reading 'Donald' appearing in her pubic region, mimicking hair.
'I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women,' Trump told the WSJ. 'It's not my language. It's not my words.'
Trump has denied writing the letter or drawing the picture, calling it 'false, malicious, and defamatory.'
The Wall Street Journal bombshell, which Trump thoroughly denounced on social media, comes amid major MAGA outrage over a DOJ and FBI report published last week indicating no further Epstein-related files will be released.
Since then, Republicans in Congress have faced pressure from their constituents to force the DOJ to release the files and conservative influencers have been pressuring lawmakers to act.
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