Trump revives legal fight with Wall Street Journal over Epstein letter

US President Donald Trump has renewed his legal battle against The Wall Street Journal, filing a revised defamation lawsuit against the newspaper’s publishers after suffering a setback in court last month.

The dispute centres on a report about a “bawdy” birthday letter that the newspaper said Trump sent to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

A district court in Florida dismissed the original lawsuit in April. Judge Darrin P. Gayles ruled that Trump had failed to plausibly demonstrate that the newspaper acted with “actual malice” in publishing the alleged letter to Epstein and that key legal criteria had not been met.

The WSJ reported on Thursday that, in the revised complaint, Trump again alleges the newspaper acted maliciously in “several respects.” The filing also points to the fact that the president has repeatedly denied any involvement with the letter.

As in the earlier lawsuit, Trump is seeking damages worth billions of dollars.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year on a letter sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003 that allegedly bore Trump’s signature. According to the newspaper, the letter contained sexually suggestive text and featured a sketch of a female figure drawn with a marker pen. Trump denied authoring it.

The president subsequently filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the newspaper and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose media empire includes the WSJ.

Trump has repeatedly targeted media organizations he considers hostile, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and the BBC.

Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, operated a years-long abuse ring involving an unknown number of women and girls. His extensive ties to political and business elites have fuelled speculation about the scope of the scandal and the involvement of prominent figures.

Last year, after prolonged resistance from Trump, Congress forced the Department of Justice to begin releasing batches of documents and photographs tied to years of investigations.

Trump was among the figures who associated with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s. However, there is no evidence linking him to Epstein’s criminal activities, and the president has said he was never “friendly with Jeffrey Epstein.”