A federal judge in Florida has tossed a revised version of President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal over a story about a birthday card he allegedly sent Jeffrey Epstein more than two decades ago.U.S.
District Judge Darrin Gayles found Trump’s amended suit suffered from the same fatal flaw as his first attempt — it fell far short of the high legal bar to show the paper had published the story with “actual malice.”“As President Trump has not plausibly alleged that each Defendant made defamatory statements with actual malice, the Amended Complaint must be dismissed.And because this is President Trump’s second attempt to allege his claims, the Court finds that dismissal with prejudice is appropriate,” the judge wrote.Trump first sued the paper last July, shortly after the Journal published a story about a birthday book that Ghislaine Maxwell had assembled for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003.
The book appeared to include a card from Trump, who had been friends with Epstein around the time.The card contained a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman with what appeared to be Trump’s first name signed in the pubic area.
It included a typewritten note depicting an imaginary conversation with Epstein, who would later be charged with sex trafficking.Trump denied having anything to do with the card, and his attorney accused the paper in his suit of having made it up and charging no such note existed.Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge, Mass., in 2004.Rick Friedman / Corbis via Getty Images fileEpstein’s estate later released a copy of a card matching the Journal’s description.Trump and the White House maintain the document is a fake.Trump’s suit alleged the writers of the article “falsely represent as fact that President Trump drew the naked woman’s breasts and signed his name ‘Donald’ below her waist, ‘mimicking pubic hair,’” and that the article caused him “overwhelming financial and reputational h...