Judge dismisses Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against WSJ

A federal judge in Miami has definitively rejected Donald Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over an article about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Judge dismisses Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against WSJ

A federal judge in Miami has definitively rejected Donald Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, Novinky.cz reported.

The lawsuit targeted an article claiming that in 2003, Trump sent sexually explicit birthday wishes to Jeffrey Epstein, accompanied by a drawing of a naked woman or girl. Trump denied authoring the greeting and subsequently sued the newspaper's journalists, owner Rupert Murdoch, and publishing houses Dow Jones and News Corp.

On Saturday, Judge Darryn Gayles ruled that the president failed to prove the defendants published the allegedly defamatory claims with actual intent to harm his reputation. In its decision, the court stated the complaint was "grasping at straws" and attempting to artificially manufacture deficiencies in the daily's investigative reporting.

Financier Epstein moved among powerful figures from politics, business and the arts, including Trump and former president Bill Clinton, though these politicians were never charged with unlawful conduct connected to his offenses. In 2019, Epstein was found dead in his prison cell while awaiting trial for abusing underage girls and trafficking people for sexual exploitation; authorities ruled the death a suicide. Already in 2008, he had been sentenced to 18 months under a controversial secret plea agreement with prosecutors for sexual abuse.

Source: Novinky.cz