The Wall Street Journal filed a motion on Wednesday asking a federal judge to once more dismiss a $10 billion defamation suit from President Donald Trump.
In the summer of 2025, the Journal published a report containing a lewd sketch of a woman that the paper alleged was drawn by President Trump and included in a decades-old birthday gift for now-deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
“It was Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday, and Ghislaine Maxwell was preparing a special gift to mark the occasion,” the Journal reported at the time. “She turned to Epstein’s family and friends. One of them was Donald Trump. Maxwell collected letters from Trump and dozens of Epstein’s other associates for a 2003 birthday album.”
Inside Trump’s letter was the lewd drawing.
A copy of a commemorative book given to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003 has been handed over to the US Congress.
Among the greetings is a typewritten note allegedly from Donald Trump, framed by a drawing of a naked woman, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The… pic.twitter.com/THyW1cE5sm
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) September 9, 2025
A day after the report’s publication, Trump sued.
“The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court names Murdoch, Dow Jones, News Corp, and its Chief Executive Robert Thomson, and two Wall Street Journal reporters as defendants, saying they defamed Trump and caused him to suffer ‘overwhelming’ financial and reputational harm,” Reuters reported.
The president referenced the suit in a Truth Social post.
“We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS ‘article’ in the useless ‘rag’ that is, The Wall Street Journal,” he wrote.
BREAKING NEWS: We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS “article” in the useless “rag” that is, The Wall Street Journal. This historic legal action is being brought against the so-called authors of…
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) July 18, 2025
Months later, in April of 2026, Judge Darrin P. Gayles, an Obama appointee, dismissed the complaint on the grounds that Trump had “not plausibly” proven that the Journal had published the summer 2025 article with malice.
“The complaint comes nowhere close to this standard,” Gayles wrote, according to Courthouse News. “Quite the opposite. The article explains that, before running the story, defendants contacted President Trump, Justice Department officials, and the FBI for comment.”
“President Trump responded with his denial, the Justice Department did not respond at all, and the FBI declined to comment. In short, the complaint and article confirm that defendants attempted to investigate,” he added.
Then, in May, the president filed an amended complaint.
“President Trump has refiled his powerhouse lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other Defendants,” a spokesperson told CNN. “The President will continue to hold those who mislead the American People with Fake News and smears accountable for their actions.”
In the amendment complaint, Trump’s legal team targeted the two authors of the Journal’s July 2025 report, Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo.
“Defendants Safdar and Palazzolo had access to two individuals who could provide information about the (lack of) veracity and authenticity of the card, President Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell, and either intentionally ignored the information received from them which disproved the statements made in the article, or defendants Safdar and Palazzolo deliberately avoided engaging in the investigation necessary to try and substantiate the statements in the article, which would have failed,” the complaint reads.
This Wednesday, the Journal filed its response to the amended complaint. The response consisted of a 22-page filing in which the Journal fiercely defended its reporters’ work.
“In his latest attempt to plead actual malice, President Trump recycles allegations already rejected by this court, makes claims contradicted by the article itself, and again lumps the various defendants together rather than pleading actual malice as to each,” the response reads.
“Because the first amended complaint falls woefully short of the President’s burden, his case should be dismissed again — this time with prejudice,” it continues.
The filing also demands that the plaintiff be forced to pay for the Journal’s attorney fees and costs as per Florida’s anti-SLAPP law, which punishes people or groups that file meritless lawsuits.
And the filing makes the case that “there is nothing defamatory about” the Journal reporting about “a person sending a bawdy note to a friend.”
