Trump Refiles $10B Lawsuit Over WSJ Epstein Story

President Trump hasn't given up on getting a huge payout from the Wall Street Journal. His lawyers have refiled a $10 billion lawsuit against the Journal's publisher over a 2025 story that said a "bawdy" letter bearing his name, with a sexually suggestive message and a drawing of a nude woman, appeared in a birthday book Ghislaine Maxwell put together for Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, the Guardian reports. A federal judge in Florida tossed the original complaint in April, finding Trump hadn't shown the Journal acted with "actual malice," but allowed him to try again with more evidence.

The new filing, longer than the first, insists no such authentic letter exists and argues the Journal could not have relied on a real document. Months after the Journal's report, the House Oversight Committee released the letter, which was provided by Epstein's estate, the Hill reports. Trump's lawyers noted that Maxwell said she didn't recall the letter.

• "Of the two surviving individuals who could substantiate whether President Trump had submitted a birthday letter, one person, President Trump, vehemently denied the existence of the alleged letter, and the other person has testified to a federal official that she had no knowledge of it," the lawsuit states, calling the Journal's story "false, malicious, and defamatory."
• The lawsuit claims Rupert Murdoch, owner of Journal parent company Dow Jones, told Trump, "I will handle it" when the president protested the story, which Trump "reasonably interpreted as meaning that Murdoch believed President Trump, and that the article would not be published."

The revised complaint accuses the Journal, Dow Jones, Murdoch, and two reporters of deliberately avoiding contrary information and omitting Trump's denial—though the original article states, "Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture." The judge has already rejected Trump's bid for early discovery to help prove actual malice. "We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit," a Dow Jones spokesman said, per the Journal. A Trump legal team spokesman said the president "will continue to hold those who mislead the American People with Fake News and smears accountable for their actions."