Trump Turns to Ghislaine Maxwell in Wall Street Journal Defamation Fight (6/3/26)

Donald Trump has refiled his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its reporting on an alleged birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein that was said to have appeared in a 2003 birthday album compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump denies writing the letter and his amended complaint continues to argue that no authentic letter or drawing exists, even though the House Oversight Committee later released the letter after obtaining it from Epstein’s estate. The renewed lawsuit comes after a federal judge dismissed Trump’s first version in April, finding that his legal team had not adequately pleaded “actual malice,” the demanding defamation standard public officials must meet when suing news organizations.

The amended filing brings Ghislaine Maxwell into the case by pointing to her July 2025 interview with then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in which she said she did not remember Trump submitting a letter, card, or note for Epstein’s birthday album. Trump’s lawyers are trying to use that statement to bolster the claim that the Journal published something false or recklessly unsupported, but the timing creates an obvious complication because Maxwell’s interview occurred after the Journal’s original reporting. The case now turns on whether Trump can prove that The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, and the named reporters knowingly published false information or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, rather than simply reporting aggressively on a disputed Epstein-related document.



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Trump Cites Maxwell In $10 Billion 'Wall Street Journal' Lawsuit