Trump refiles $10 billion defamation lawsuit against Wall Street Journal’s publisher
President Donald Trump on Wednesday refiled a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, that was thrown out by a federal judge last month.
News Corp, the WSJ’s parent company, its CEO Robert Thomson, former chair Rupert Murdoch and the reporters who worked on the story are also named in the lawsuit, which Trump’s attorneys filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
The litigation is over an article written by the WSJ about a letter it said Trump wrote to the late convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday, included as part of a booklet made by Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.
In the new lawsuit, Trump’s lawyers argued that the article has resulted in “overwhelming financial and reputational damages to President Trump, expected to be in the billions of dollars.” Trump’s attorneys also wrote that Maxwell testified to a federal official that she had no knowledge of the letter.
In a defamation lawsuit, public officials must prove that a publication either knew the article was false when it was published or acted with reckless disregard for evidence suggesting it was likely false — a tough legal hill to climb. Private individuals have a lower legal bar to hurdle.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles said in his April decision that Trump’s team came “nowhere close” to making a case that the WSJ’s report on the authenticity of the letter in the Epstein files was “actual malice.”
Gayles noted in his ruling that the paper made efforts to confirm the letter’s legitimacy and also reached out to Trump, the FBI and the Department of Justice for comment.
Dow Jones previously said in a statement that it has “full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a copy of the birthday book that included the letter after the Wall Street Journal article was published.
Included in the letter is Trump’s name and typed lines framed within the outline of a naked woman. Trump’s alleged signature is at the bottom of the letter as well. One of the written lines reads, “May every day be another wonderful secret,” and refers to Epstein as a “pal.”
Trump has maintained he did not write the letter or draw the image.
Lawyers for Trump said in the suit filed Wednesday that the president’s legal counsel sent emails to one of the WSJ reporters who wrote the article telling them it was false and defamatory. Trump also told Murdoch in a phone call that the premise of the article was “categorically false,” Trump’s attorneys said, and that he did not send or sign the letter.
Murdoch, according to the lawsuit, said that he would “handle it.” Trump’s lawyers say the president “reasonably interpreted” this to mean that Murdoch believed Trump, and that the article would not be published.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
