This billion-dollar lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal is a continuation of Trump's legal actions related to Epstein coverage. Previously, the White House had repeatedly denied the reports and stated that legal action would be taken. Notably, this is not an isolated incident. Since September last year, Trump has filed similar high-profile defamation lawsuits against multiple media outlets such as The New York Times and BBC, with claims totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, and some cases have already entered the trial stage (for example, the lawsuit against BBC is scheduled for February 2027). This series of actions points to a pattern: using high-amount claims to legally counteract related reports.

The key detail is that this revised complaint was filed before the deadline set by the judge, and must overcome the high threshold of "actual malice" required for defamation suits against public figures. This indicates that the litigation strategy is shifting from initial "public slander and attack" to a form more in line with legal procedures, but its core goal — to counter the impact of reports on Epstein and other sensitive topics — has remained unchanged.
On May 28, U.S. President Trump filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its parent company, News Corporation, over a report involving his close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The initial lawsuit for the same case had previously been dismissed by the judge. The revised complaint was submitted to the U.S. District Court in Florida on Wednesday evening local time, just before the deadline set by the judge.
Earlier, the plaintiff's lawsuit was dismissed because the judge found that they failed to sufficiently prove that the relevant report was made with "actual malice" towards Trump — a high threshold that must be crossed in defamation suits against public figures. Trump’s lawsuit targets a report published by The Wall Street Journal in July 2025. The report claimed that Trump had sent a "vulgar" birthday card to Epstein in 2003, which Trump repeatedly claimed was forged. $ETH