President Donald Trump’s legal team has requested a Florida federal judge reject a request from the Wall Street Journal to dismiss a $10 billion defamation lawsuit over the paper’s reporting on the bawdy letter allegedly penned by Trump that appeared in a birthday book for disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a court filing late Monday, Trump’s lawyers argued that the July article and surrounding coverage were a “deliberate smear campaign designed to damage President Trump’s reputation” and subject the president to “public hatred and ridicule.” They also requested oral arguments over the Journal’s recent motion to dismiss.
“Defendants did not publish the Article on the front page of The Wall Street Journal based on a mere harmless joke between friends,” Monday’s filing said. “Indeed, such an assertion strains credulity beyond repair. The Article, and the surrounding media around it, were all a deliberate smear campaign designed to damage President Trump’s reputation.”
Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding and participating in Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls, told Justice Department officials in August that Epstein had asked her to organize contributions to his 50th birthday book from friends and associates, but said she could not recall if Trump, then a private citizen, was among those who responded.
Last month, the House Oversight Committee released records from Epstein’s estate that included a copy of a birthday book with the alleged letter from Trump that the newspaper had described.
Trump then filed a lawsuit against the Journal in July, and has continued to assert the letter is fake and that the signature on the letter is not his.
Acknowledging the release of the letter by the House Oversight panel, Trump’s lawyers alleged that the Wall Street Journal was still “deliberate and malicious” in its reporting by claiming that the letter was not only authored by Trump but also “on-brand” for the president.
The Wall Street Journal has stood by its reporting.
“Because Plaintiff has publicly admitted that he was Epstein’s friend in the early 2000s, his reputation cannot be harmed by the suggestion that he was friends with Epstein in 2003. Indeed, he was listed in the Birthday Book as a ‘friend’ of Epstein. The fact that his relationship with Epstein may now be a political liability — over 20 years after the Birthday Book was presented to Epstein — does not change this conclusion,” the Journal contended in its request for dismissal.
While the Journal’s reporting included a denial from President Trump, his lawyers argued in Mondays filing that the publication still acted with a “reckless disregard for the truth” because the request for comment was rushed and the reporting allegedly cast doubt on the president’s claim.
