The US State Department said it would deny visas to five people, including a former EU commissioner, for seeking to “coerce” American social media platforms into suppressing viewpoints they oppose.
“These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states – in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
Thierry Breton, the former top tech regulator at the European Commission, suggested that a “witch hunt” was taking place.
Breton was described by the State Department as the “mastermind” of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes content moderation on social media firms.
However, it has angered some US conservatives who see it as seeking to censor right-wing opinions. Brussels denies this.
Breton has clashed with Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and owner of X, over obligations to follow EU rules.
The European Commission recently fined X €120m (£105m) over its blue tick badges – the first fine under the DSA. It said the platform’s blue tick system was “deceptive” because the firm was not “meaningfully verifying users”.
In response, Musk’s site blocked the Commission from making adverts on its platform.
Reacting to the visa ban, Breton posted on X: “To our American friends: Censorship isn’t where you think it is.”
Clare Melford, who leads the UK-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI), was also listed.
US Undersecretary of State Sarah B Rogers accused the GDI of using US taxpayer money “to exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press”.
A GDI spokesperson told the BBC that “the visa sanctions announced today are an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship”.
“The Trump Administration is, once again, using the full weight of the federal government to intimidate, censor, and silence voices they disagree with. Their actions today are immoral, unlawful, and un-American.”
Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that fights online hate and misinformation, was also handed a ban.
Rogers called Mr Ahmed a “key collaborator with the Biden Administration’s effort to weaponize the government against US citizens”.
The BBC has reached out to the CCDH for comment.
Also subject to bans were Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of HateAid, a German organisation that the State Department said helped enforce the DSA.
In a statement to the BBC, the two CEOs called it an “act of repression by a government that is increasingly disregarding the rule of law and trying to silence its critics by any means necessary”.
“We will not be intimidated by a government that uses accusations of censorship to silence those who stand up for human rights and freedom of expression,” they added.
Rubio said that steps had been taken to impose visa restrictions on “agents of the global censorship-industrial complex who, as a result, will be generally barred from entering the United States”.
“President Trump has been clear that his America First foreign policy rejects violations of American sovereignty. Extraterritorial overreach by foreign censors targeting American speech is no exception,” he added.
Watch: The BBC reports on the latest Epstein file release
The US Department of Justice released its latest – and largest – tranche of Jeffrey Epstein files on Tuesday.
The 11,000-plus documents continue a stream of released information that began on Friday, the deadline mandated in a new law that required the department to publicly release all of its investigative files into the deceased paedophile and financier.
Many of the documents released on Tuesday are redacted with names and information blacked out, including names of people who the FBI appears to cite as possible co-conspirators in the Epstein case.
The justice department is facing criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle over the amount of redactions, which the law specifically states can only be done to protect the identity of victims or active criminal investigations.
President Donald Trump’s name appeared more in these new documents than in previous releases. Many were media clippings that mention him, but one notable email from a federal prosecutor indicated Trump flew on Epstein’s jet.
The justice department said some files “contain untrue and sensationalist claims” about Trump.
Being mentioned in the Epstein files does not indicate wrongdoing. BBC has requested comment from individuals named in our reporting.
Email exchange between ‘A’ and Ghislaine Maxwell about ‘girls’
Of the thousands of pages included in this latest release, one 2001 email sent by a person identified as “A” stands out.
The message, to Epstein’s accomplice and close associate Ghislaine Maxwell, says that “A” is at “Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family”.
“A” then asks Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for sex trafficking of minors and other offences: “Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?”
In another email sent later that day, Maxwell writes back: “So sorry to dissapoint [sic] you, however the truth must be told. I have only been able to find appropriate friends.”
The “A” email was sent from the address abx17@dial.pipex.com, with the sender’s name shown as “The Invisible Man”.
An image from a prior Epstein files release showed a different, but similar email – aace@dial.pipex.com – listed in Epstein’s phone book under a contact titled “Duke of York”.
Another exchange in the new files between Maxwell and “The Invisible Man” discusses a trip to Peru.
In October, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor lost use of his Duke of York title following scrutiny over his links with Epstein.
He has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing, and said he did not “see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to his [Epstein’s] arrest and conviction”.
The BBC has contacted Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s team for a response.
FBI email lists out 10 alleged co-conspirators to Epstein
US Department of Justice
Among the documents released are emails appearing to be sent between FBI personnel in 2019 that mention 10 possible “co-conspirators” of Epstein.
The emails said six of the 10 co-conspirators had been served with subpoenas. This included three in Florida, one in Boston, one in New York City, and one in Connecticut.
Four subpoenas were yet to be served when the emails were sent, including to one “wealthy businessman in Ohio”.
Another email sent to FBI New York gives an update on the co-conspirators. This time it appears to mention multiple names. Most are redacted from the file.
Two names were not redacted – (Ghislaine) Maxwell and Wexner.
An email says, “I do not know about Ohio contacting Wexner”.
The email is presumably referring to Former Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner, who had a public friendship with Epstein. In 2019, Wexner said he was “embarrassed” by his ties to the financier.
Lawyers for Wexner told BBC News that “the assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the Epstein investigation stated at the time that Mr. Wexner was neither a co-conspirator nor target”.
“Mr. Wexner cooperated fully by providing background information on Epstein and was never contacted again,” they said.
Possible co-conspirators in Epstein’s crimes are a major focus for his victims, and for several lawmakers who have demanded more transparency from the DOJ.
“There’s 10 co-conspirators potentially that we knew nothing about that the DOJ had been investigating,” Democrat Congressman Suhas Subramanyam told BBC News on Tuesday.
Subramanyam, who sits on the House Oversight Committee, added that he was also “concerned” over the level of redactions that protect names of lawyers and people who are not victims. Lawmakers in both parties have said they are examining legal options to force more transparency.
The law passed by Congress and signed by President Trump states names and information that might be embarrassing or cause “reputational harm” are not allowed to be redacted and specifically asks the justice department for internal communications and memos detailing who was investigated and decisions concerning “to charge, not charge, investigate, or decline to investigate Epstein or his associates”.
Justice Department says Epstein letter to Larry Nassar is a fake
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Larry Nassar
A letter included in the released batch of documents got a lot of attention online. But, according to the justice department, it is fake.
The handwritten letter and envelope at first appeared to show Epstein writing to Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics doctor who is serving decades in prison for sexually abusing young female athletes.
“As you know by now I have taken the ‘short route’ home. Good luck!” the faux letter states. “We shared one thing…our love & caring for young ladies and the hope they’d reach their full potential.”
The writer signs it, “Life is unfair, Yours, J. Epstein.”
The letter had been deemed undeliverable, and was sent back to a Manhattan jail where Epstein was detained before his death.
The FBI was alerted to the returned letter and requested an analysis of it. That request was also included in the releases batch of documents.
The justice department on Tuesday called the letter a fake, noting several irregularities with the note and the envelope that held it.
“The writing does not appear to match Jeffrey Epstein’s,” the justice department wrote on X.
“The return address did not list the jail where Epstein was held and did not include his inmate number, which is required for outgoing mail,” they added.
Officials pointed out the envelope bore a postmark from northern Virginia – noting that Epstein was detained in New York. It was also postmarked on 13 August 2019, three days after Epstein died.
Even before the justice department’s announcement of it being fake, the documents raised immediate questions.
The return sender was listed as “J. Epstein” at “Manhattan Correctional” – but the correct name for the now-shuttered jail was “Metropolitan Correctional Center”.
The documents released on Tuesday also show the analysis request by the FBI.
A FBI laboratory request stated that in August 2019, a sender listed as “J. Epstein” at “Manhattan Correctional” tried to send a letter to “Larry Nassar at 9300 S. Wilmot Road, Tucson, Arizona, 85756”, the address of a federal prison.
Nassar is currently incarcerated in Pennsylvania, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
Trump’s travels aboard Epstein’s private jet
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Trump’s name appears more in these files than in other batches of documents released by the justice department.
Notably, in a January 2020 email, a federal prosecutor in New York wrote that newly received flight records “reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware)”.
The recipient of the email was redacted.
Trump was listed as a passenger on “at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996”, and Ghislaine Maxwell was present on at least four of those flights, the prosecutor wrote. Trump was also “listed as having traveled with, among others and at various times, Marla Maples, his daughter Tiffany, and his son Eric”.
Trump was previously married to Marla Maples, Tiffany’s mother, from 1993 to 1999.
The prosecutor also wrote that “on one flight in 1993, he and Epstein are the only two listed passengers; on another, the only three passengers are Epstein, Trump, and then-20-year-old”, with the third passenger’s name redacted.
“On two other flights, two of the passengers, respectively, were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case.”
The timing of the trips coincide with years in which federal prosecutors were examining Maxwell’s conduct and travels as part of the criminal case they brought against her. She was ultimately found guilty of conspiring with Epstein to recruit and sexually abuse minors.
But throughout the files released on Tuesday, many of the other mentions of Trump’s name are simply in press clippings mentioning him, his campaigns, and other news moments.
Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in regards to Epstein.
In a statement accompanying Tuesday’s release, the Department of Justice said the new files “contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election”.
“To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” the justice department said.
Fake video of Epstein included
Among one of the odder entries in Tuesday’s document drop was a fake video showing an Epstein-like figure in a prison cell, which raised questions of how it had appeared in the department’s official files.
Other documents showed that a man from Florida sent an email to federal investigators in March 2021 with a link to the video. He asked if it was real, but it is not.
BBC Verify used a reverse image search to find a copy of the video had been uploaded to YouTube in October 2020. The user who posted it said the clip had been created using 3D graphics.
According to a 2023 report by the Bureau of Prisons, no video recording from inside Epstein’s cell on the day of his death exists.
The fake video’s inclusion in this release gives a glimpse of the questions that federal authorities have received from the general public, many of whom, having heard conspiracy theories or harboured doubts for years, want answers about Epstein’s life and death.
Christmas is a time when families get together if they can – and, until this year, the Murdochs were no different. With members of the media dynasty spread across the globe, full family gatherings were rare, although in 2008, according to biographer Michael Wolff, the Murdochs spent the festive season together on a flotilla of private yachts.
But more often in recent years it was Rupert – for many decades the most influential media titan in the world – and his daughter Elisabeth who would make time for each other.
She would certainly have room this year to host her father at the luxurious home she has renovated on the edge of the Cotswolds. But after a bruising closed-court battle in Nevada that became public and an eventual agreement that shut Elisabeth and two of her siblings out of the family firm for good, relations are likely still too strained for even the Murdoch family peacemaker to suggest communal tree-decorating.
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Elisabeth Murdoch and two of her siblings, James and Prudence, have been cut out of the family firm
Rupert’s eldest child by his second wife, Elisabeth is the co-founder and executive chairman of the production company, Sister, which is behind hit television series, including Black Doves, The Split and This is Going To Hurt. In my experience, she is generous, intelligent and hard-working.
Friends are fiercely loyal and protective of her privacy. Nobody I have spoken to has a bad word to say about her. Many acknowledge, though, that it has been an incredibly testing year on the family front – even if Elisabeth, her younger brother, James, and elder half-sister, Prudence, are each around a billion dollars richer.
Money doesn’t compensate for a father who, in his mid-90s, decided to rip his family apart because he believed it was in the interests of his business. The Murdochs have never been a traditional family – one reason why their story is said to have inspired the power struggles and backstabbing in the acclaimed TV drama, Succession. But this time, the schism feels more permanent. And as one person put it to me, the TV show concluded too early by killing off Logan Roy: there was more drama to come.
‘James and Rupert will never patch up differences’
James Murdoch’s relationship with his father and older brother Lachlan appears irreconcilable. Earlier this year, he described his dad as a “misogynist” in an interview in US magazine The Atlantic, and referred to some of Rupert’s behaviour in the courtroom fight as “twisted”.
He is known to feel betrayed and angered by Rupert’s decision to force him, Elisabeth and Prudence formally to cut ties with Fox Corp and News Corp. Driven by fears over the more liberal direction they might want the companies to take after his death, the media mogul tried to change the terms of a trust that gave his four oldest children equal control when he dies.
Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
James Murdoch’s relationship with his father Rupert and older brother Lachlan now appears irreconcilable (L-R, James Murdoch, Anna Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch)
Lachlan, who Rupert had already chosen to run the business, is now – definitively – the only one who will take the reins after his father’s demise.
Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch actually lost the first round of their court fight. The trust had been set up in 1999, when Rupert divorced Anna, the mother of Lachlan, Elisabeth and James.
The judge ruled that changing it was in bad faith. But behind the scenes, the warring sides eventually came to an agreement. James, Elisabeth and Prudence agreed to sell their shares. They have accepted terms that include not being allowed to buy any equity in the family company in future.
“It’s a sad ending,” Claire Atkinson, whose biography of Rupert Murdoch will come out next year, told us on The Media Show.
“These kids worked in the business, they grew up in the business, and the press release said, ‘You can’t buy shares in this company,’ and effectively said, ‘Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’”
She also told me: “This break is extremely permanent. It feels like James and Rupert will never patch up their differences.”
Lachlan Murdoch has been quoted as saying that the resolution is “good news for investors” and “gives us clarity about our strategy going forward”.
Ironically, his successful leadership of Fox Corp, where he’s been CEO since 2019 (he became chairman of Fox and also News Corp in 2023 when his father became chairman emeritus), made the deal more costly.
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Media journalist Claire Atkinson says the family rift involving Lachlan (left), Rupert (centre) and James (right) feels “permanent”
Fox Corp has seen its share price double under Lachlan and the Trump presidency has brought a ratings bonanza. It raised the amount he had to pay his siblings to get them out – a presumably unwelcome side effect.
Despite the payout, Atkinson says, “There is a fracture in the company and a fracture in the family.”
So where do the Murdochs go from here, privately and corporately?
Court battles, rifts and an ageing patriarch
Elisabeth and her half-sister Prudence are said to be concentrating on moving on.
Their father turned 94 in March, with the court battle in full swing. The sisters are mindful that he won’t be around forever and I am told they are hoping at some point to repair the rift.
Reuters
Prudence Murdoch and her half-sister Elisabeth are said to be focused on moving on from the dispute
However much they have felt betrayed by him (and there is no doubt, they have felt it, very painfully), there’s an understanding of the dwindling number of years he has left.
But Christmas may still be too soon for reconciliation. Lachlan hosted his annual party for the Australian elite at his harbour-side Sydney home earlier this month. Fox Corp may operate out of the US, but he is said to prefer the laid-back nature of Australian life, even if the trade-off is business calls in the middle of the night because of the time difference, as well as a lot of flights.
Atkinson says he is popular and well-liked within the business. “The difficulty that Lachlan has is that he’s been in charge for years, but everybody is always going to project that every decision is Rupert’s. He’s never going to want to say, ‘Hey, that’s me,’ and so I think it’s a little hard to come out from Dad’s shadow.”
At the same time, Rodney Benson, professor of media, culture, and communication at New York University, says that while Rupert remains a presence in the company “what’s really unique about Lachlan’s approach, or what will be unique about his approach, won’t fully emerge”.
Lachlan’s ‘business over politics’ strategy
Fox News is the financial cash cow, which may explain Rupert Murdoch’s concerns that his children might have wanted to change its political affiliations.
Under Lachlan, there’s been a successful strategy to expand into digital and streaming, most notably the ad-supported video-on-demand service, Tubi.
In September, US President Donald Trump said Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch were expected to be part of a group of investors trying to buy TikTok in the US. On Thursday, TikTok parent company ByteDance announced to staff that it had signed an agreement to sell a portion of TikTok to a group of mostly US based investors. Lachlan and Rupert were not named as part of the deal.
Reuters
Under Lachlan Murdoch’s leadership, the company has pursued a strategy centred on digital and streaming growth
Presenting the Fox Corporation’s results for July to September, Lachlan said Tubi had achieved rapid revenue growth and growth in view time, confirming its position as the top premium advertising-based video-on-demand platform in the US.
“And I’m happy to say Tubi reached profitability this past quarter,” he added. “It’s a great milestone.”
He also said Fox News had maintained strong ratings throughout the quarter, cementing its status as the most-watched cable network in prime time, and leading to the highest advertising revenue for July-September quarter in Fox’s history.
Rupert Murdoch’s 70-year career saw him as “both an interventionist editor-in-chief figure and a political kingmaker”, according to Paddy Manning, an investigative journalist who wrote The Successor: The High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch. But he adds, “Lachlan is less of the journalist and powerbroker than his father, and more of a businessman.
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Author Paddy Manning says Lachlan is “less of a journalist and powerbroker than his father, and more of a businessman”
“If you look at the signature deals that Lachlan has made over his career, they have not been designed to increase his political influence. From digital real estate to sports betting to commercial radio to Tubi, Lachlan’s investment decisions are focused on the bottom line, not burnishing his political credentials.”
But Prof Benson suggests the significant debt the Murdoch businesses have taken on as part of the settlement with Lachlan’s siblings increases pressure to make profit, and therefore to pursue “politically sensationalistic… outrage journalism”.
“The proven way to be profitable in cable/streaming news is not by becoming more centrist and civil, it’s by becoming more extreme, more polarising, and more willing to stir outrage,” he says.
Rupert has had a hotline to major political figures for decades. In September he was on President Trump’s guestlist for the state banquet at Windsor Castle. I’m told he spent nearly two weeks in London and was in the News UK office most days.
While Lachlan now runs the company, his father is still very much involved. Rupert’s been described to me, at 94, as still “the sharpest person in the room” and a “phenomenon who loves papers and has ink in his veins”. His voice may be a little softer, but he is mentally as strong and influential as ever, I’m told.
AFP via Getty Images
Rupert Murdoch recently attended a state banquet at Windsor Castle as a guest of US President Donald Trump
At one point the editor of the Times introduced Rupert to a slightly startled young journalist on the newsdesk and asked him to show the boss the paper’s recently launched Live app and what it showed around reader engagement on specific stories.
Rupert also spoke to Fraser Nelson, the former Spectator editor now Times columnist, who usually sits at the open plan table in the office. They discussed the company’s pivot to video and the work Nelson had been trialling around short form video. Rupert also wanted to talk to his paper’s new star about whether Nigel Farage would end up in government.
A family ‘deeply divided’
Three months on from the family trust dispute settlement, Mr Manning claims that the Murdochs are “deeply divided”.
“While Lachlan works closely with his father, I understand he remains estranged from his elder siblings,” he alleges.
Rupert Murdoch and his children Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence were all approached for comment.
Presciently, Anna Murdoch – Lachlan, James and Elisabeth’s mother – predicted much of the fallout back in the 1980s.
In her novel Family Business, Anna, a journalist and author, wrote about the rise of a fictional newspaper dynasty and explored sibling rivalry, jealousy and how parental power can negatively impact family relationships. The plot of the book, published while her children were in their teens, follows how a newspaper owner’s children are shaped by a parent who turns them into competitors in a power struggle.
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Anna Murdoch, the mother of Lachlan, James and Elisabeth, warned that family divisions could emerge (L – R, Lachlan, James, Rupert, Elisabeth and Anna)
A decade after it was published – by which time the pair had divorced and Rupert had married third wife Wendi Deng – Anna gave an interview to an Australian women’s magazine, during which she was asked which of her children would be best suited to take over from her ex-husband.
“Actually I’d like none of them to,” she said. “I think they’re all so good that they could do whatever they wanted really. But I think there’s going to be a lot of heartbreak and hardship with this [succession]. There’s been such a lot of pressure that they needn’t have had at their age.”
The family trust, agreed between Rupert and Anna as part of their divorce settlement, was her way of safeguarding her children’s futures, by ensuring they had equality after Rupert’s death. But that blew up – through a court fight in Nevada and a settlement.
And with that, relations with three of his six children may have blown up too – perhaps for good.
Top picture credits: Getty Images and Reuters
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