The Wall Street Journal filed a motion asking a judge to throw out President Donald Trump’s revised lawsuit over its Jeffrey Epstein letter story, defending the complaint simply “re-package[d]” claims that were dismissed in April.
In court documents obtained and viewed by TheWrap, attorneys for the Dow Jones & Company, the WSJ’s parent company, argued that the president’s updated suit “does not remedy any of the defects identified in the court’s dismissal order.”
The filing added: “In fact, it compounds them … Plaintiff still fails to plausibly plead that Defendants published the Article with actual malice. The FAC’s new allegations re-package Plaintiff’s earlier argument—rejected by this Court—that the Journal did not investigate before publishing. But failure to investigate is not actual malice.”
In response to Trump’s claim that the article contained “glaring omissions” that supposedly demonstrate malice, the WSJ’s legal team defended that “much of the ‘omitted’ information is, in fact, included in the Article. And even if these omissions existed, none would plausibly plead Defendants believed the Article to be false.”
“Second, the Article does not have a defamatory meaning,” the motion noted. “Even if the Article had reported that Plaintiff personally crafted the letter to Epstein—and it does not—there is nothing defamatory about a person sending a bawdy note to a friend. Third, the Article was proven true when Congress released a letter identical to the one described in the Article, which the FAC now directly incorporates by reference.”
As we previously reported, Trump filed a defamation suit in July 2025 against the Journal over its article detailing his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including a lewd birthday card featuring the president’s alleged signature. Trump has denied signing the letter in-question.
“I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his ‘pile of garbage’ newspaper, the WSJ,” Trump wrote at the time. “That will be an interesting experience!!!”
Yet, in April, a federal judge dismissed President Trump’s lawsuit against the Journal, its parent company Dow Jones and owner Rupert Murdoch, finding that the complaint came “nowhere close” to establishing that journalists acted with actual malice in their reporting.
This did not deter Trump from his fight against the Journal, however. At the end of May, Trump refiled the $10 billion defamation lawsuit, in which he alleged the publication “recklessly disregarded” whether this letter to Epstein was actually sent by the president — and called into question how the signature “was verified.”
A spokesperson for the president stood by the lawsuit, noting in a statement to media on Wednesday, “President Trump has filed a powerhouse lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other Defendants. The President will continue to hold those who mislead the American People with Fake News and smears accountable for their actions.”
