Trump’s US$10 billion lawsuit against WSJ and Murdoch thrown out
US president says he plans to re-file lawsuit over an article about a suggestive Epstein birthday letter
A federal judge dismissed US President Donald Trump’s US$10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch on Monday over a story on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
US District Judge Darrin P. Gayles in Florida wrote in the order that Trump had failed to make the argument that the article was published with the intent to be malicious, but gave the president a chance to file an amended complaint.
In a social media post several hours after the ruling, Trump said the decision “is not a termination” but rather a “suggested re-filing” of his “powerful case”, which Trump said would be done “on or before April 27th”.
Trump filed the lawsuit in July, following up on a promise to sue the paper almost immediately after it put a new spotlight on his well-documented relationship with Epstein by publishing an article that described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper said bore Trump’s signature and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
The letter was subsequently released publicly by Congress, which subpoenaed the records from Epstein’s estate. Trump denied writing it, calling the story “false, malicious, and defamatory”.
Lawyers for the newspaper and Murdoch had asked Gayles to rule that the article’s statements were true and therefore could not be defamatory, but the judge wrote that “whether President Trump was the author of the Letter or Epstein’s friend are questions of fact that cannot be determined at this stage of the litigation,” Gayles wrote.