Trump's Wall Street Journal suit over Epstein story faces timing hurdle
If the case proceeds, Trump would need to clear a demanding "actual malice" standard that must be met by public figures to win in U.S. defamation cases. The standard means Trump must prove the paper knew the article was false or acted with reckless disregard for its truth.
The Wall Street Journal lawsuit is the latest in a series of cases Trump has filed against news outlets, and experts said his demonstrated willingness to sue could have a chilling effect on coverage of his administration even if the suit was ultimately unsuccessful.
Trump sued the Journal and its owners including Rupert Murdoch in Miami federal court on Friday, seeking at least $10 billion on each of two defamation counts. He said the newspaper defamed him in a July 17 report that said Trump's name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Epstein that included a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to secrets they shared.
Reuters has not independently verified the WSJ report.
A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the Journal's parent, said on Friday the company was confident in the accuracy of its reporting and would vigorously defend itself against the lawsuit.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He had pleaded not guilty and the case was dismissed after his death.
Backers of conspiracy theories about Epstein have urged Trump to release investigative files related to the disgraced financier and sex offender.
Two lawyers with experience in defamation law said Trump did not appear to have complied with a Florida law requiring anyone bringing a defamation case against "a newspaper, periodical, or other medium" to notify the defendant at least five days before filing suit.
That means the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles, would have no option but to dismiss the case if the Journal asked him to do so, though Trump may be able to re-file it, the experts said.
The Journal published its story on Thursday. In his lawsuit on Friday, Trump's lawyers said the Journal informed Trump about the forthcoming article last Tuesday, and they sent the paper an email that same day asserting that the article would be false and defamatory.
That timeline does not appear to comply with Florida's five-day notice law, said Marc Randazza, who said he had been practicing defamation law in Florida for more than 20 years.
"I don't even need to look at the merits of the case. The game is over," said Randazza of law firm Randazza Legal Group in Las Vegas. Randazza said Trump's case was "at least colorable" on the merits.
The White House deferred comment to Trump's lawyer in the case, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Dow Jones declined to comment.
In addition to the five-day notice hurdle, Trump would likely struggle to prove that the Journal acted with "actual malice," said Andrew Fleischman of law firm Sessions & Fleischman in Atlanta.
To back Trump's claim that the Journal knew the story was inaccurate, his complaint says the president informed the Journal before publication that the reporting was false.
Fleischman said a disagreement about the truth of an assertion is not enough to prove actual malice. Instead, Trump would need to demonstrate that the paper was deliberately lying.
The billions in monetary damages Trump was seeking is a "PR figure" designed to attract attention, said Fleischman, who frequently defends clients against defamation claims.
The figure would far exceed the largest defamation judgments and settlements in recent history, including a $1.3 billion judgment against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and Fox News' settlement with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million.
Trump, a Republican who has pledged to "straighten out the press," has a mixed record in the numerous lawsuits he has filed against media outlets.
Judges have dismissed cases he brought against CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post. More recently, television network ABC and CBS parent company Paramount (PARA.O), opens new tab have opted to settle cases brought by Trump.
Walt Disney (DIS.N), opens new tab-owned ABC News in December paid $15 million and publicly apologized for comments by anchor George Stephanopoulos, who inaccurately said Trump had been found liable for rape. Trump had been found liable of sexually abusing, but not raping, the magazine writer E. Jean Carroll.
Paramount's $16 million settlement came as the company seeks approval from U.S. regulators for its merger with Skydance Media. Trump had initially sought $10 billion in his lawsuit, which alleged CBS deceptively edited an interview with Democratic former Vice President Kamala Harris to favor her rival presidential bid.
Even if the Journal prevails, Trump's willingness to file claims against news organizations could have a chilling effect on journalists given the costs of defending against them, experts said.
Trump would not be the first member of his administration to run up against Florida's five-day notice provision.
In 2019, podcaster Dan Bongino - who is now the deputy director of the FBI - sued online news outlet the Daily Beast for defamation over a story about his departure from the National Rifle Association's online video channel.
The case was dismissed the next year. U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez in Miami sided with the Daily Beast in finding that Bongino did not comply with the provision, but said the basis of his decision was that Bongino's case lacked merit.
Neither the FBI nor Bongino's personal lawyers immediately responded to requests for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Metro
11 minutes ago
- Metro
Trump tearing down parts of White House to build £150,000,000 ballroom
President Donald Trump has unveiled his plans to build a $200,000 ballroom at the White House that will be part of his 'legacy'. Trump, who rose to fame as a real estate developer, has been wanting to construct the ballroom since his first term, but said he got too busy 'fighting for survival with all the lunatics I had to beat'. 'There was never a president that was good at ballrooms. I'm really good,' the president said on Thursday, adding he had just looked at an 'incredible' one he built in Turnberry, Scotland. 'We're good at building, I'm good at building things. And we'll get it built quickly and on time and it'll be beautiful, top of the line.' To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The White House State Ballroom will be about 90,000 square feet and have a seated capacity of 650 people. The East Room of the White House, by comparison, can only accommodate 200 seats. Many functions hosting world leaders have been held in a 'large and unsightly' tent about 100 yards away from the main building entrance, according to the White House. Presidents, administrations and staff have 'longed' for a ballroom for 150 years. The new ballroom will be separate from the main executive building but share its architectural theme. It will be 'where the small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits', according to the White House. Renderings of the project show a grand, cream-colored interior with crystal and gold chandeliers, gold-adorned ceilings, gold lamps, Corinthian columns and a marble floor. 'President Trump is a builder at heart and has an extraordinary eye for detail,' said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, reading from a statement from chief of staff Susie Wiles. The ballroom will have a view of the Washington Monument, Trump said. 'It won't interfere with the current building, it'll be near it but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building which I'm the biggest fan of, its my favorite place, I love it,' he said. Trump picked McCrery Architect, which specializes in classical architectural design and is based in Washington, DC, to lead the project. The firm's CEO, Jim McCrery, stated that they will bring a 'beautiful and necessary renovation to The People's House, while preserving the elegance of its classical design and historical importance'. More Trending Renovations are set to begin in September and the ballroom is expected to be completed before the end of Trump's term. The offices of First Lady Melania Trump, the military and other staff in the East Wing will be relocated as the work is underway. Trump said he is privately funding the project and will likely have some donors. 'I think it will be a legacy project,' he said, 'And I think it'll be special.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Infant dies in hot car after being left by dad who 'forgot about him' MORE: Virginie Giuffre's family ask what Trump really knew about Epstein after his 'stolen' comment MORE: Donald Trump 'struggles to stay awake' during his own press conference
The Independent
11 minutes ago
- The Independent
Economy is getting worse under Trump's leadership, Americans say in new poll on eve of his tariff D-Day
A new poll shows Donald Trump underwater on the issue of his tariff agenda as Friday's enforcement deadline looms for the 'Liberation Day' measures he announced in April. In 2024, Trump won election to a nonconsecutive second term, boosted by the same issues that propelled him to victory the first time around. Concerns over immigration and the economy were at the forefront of voters' minds, though he received a key boost from the implosion of Joe Biden's campaign. But in a Times of London/YouGov poll out Thursday, the president's tariff agenda is one of the biggest anchors driving down his approval numbers. Some 48% of Americans graded Trump's job performance over the first six months of his administration as poor, compared to just 21% who rated it excellent, 16% who rated it good and 11% who rated it as fair. On the core issue of tariffs, Trump is clearly tanking — despite months of pronouncements from the White House of America's impending 'Golden Age.' Four in ten Americans say that Trump's tariffs will make the country poorer and stifle economic growth. Just 26% believe the White House's line about economic prosperity coming down the pike. And most alarmingly for the White House, inflation still ranks as the No. 1 issue for voters. That could prove to be dangerous ground for the president as the summer concludes with potentially sharp increases to consumer prices stemming from the president's reciprocal tariffs, which are currently set as high as 50% with at least one trading partner, Brazil. A CBS News poll further dove into the president's declining numbers on the economy. Six in 10 of voters under 30 now say that Trump's policies are harming the economy, and making them worse off financially. Seven in 10 voters in the same category say that they didn't believe the president is focused enough on lowering prices for consumers. If Donald Trump is losing ground with the younger voters he peeled off from Democrats in 2024, Republicans are set for trouble in the midterm elections next year. Polling isn't yet registering significant voter support for the GOP budget reconciliation package, the 'big, beautiful bill', as it's been overshadowed by the president's tariffs and mass deportation agenda, among other issues. Another factor driving down Trump's numbers with younger voters is Jeffrey Epstein. The Justice Department blew up the investigation into Epstein, a convicted pedophile and sex criminal who died in 2019, when in early July the agency declared that the billionaire financier died by suicide, as had previously been found, and that no evidence linking him to accomplices, other than Ghislaine Maxwell, was uncovered. The sudden declaration that the 'Epstein Client List', which Vice President JD Vance and others in the administration pledged to release, supposedly did not exist at all erupted into a wildfire on the MAGA right, particularly among Trump's younger supporters. Trump then spent the month of July embracing a series of increasingly obvious attempts at distraction, infuriating many and driving speculation even higher. The Times/YouGov poll found that a much larger share of voters, more than four in ten, think that Trump and his team have partially or completely lied in their public statements regarding the case. Less than 20% of Americans believe them. Immigration has been another issue where the president has lost ground as the White House and Department of Homeland Security have accelerated mass deportation programs under his second term. Images of immigration enforcement raids have caused massive protests in Los Angeles and alarmed many Americans including Trump-supporting independents around the country. Nearly every poll on the Decision Desk HQ Average, with the exception of two surveys conducted by Republican outfits, now shows Trump with popularity ratings in the negative, some by double digits. Some pollsters have speculated that Trump began at a deficit other presidents escaped in their first six months due in large part to the circumstances of his 2024 victory and the rank unpopularity that the Democratic Party encouraged with its jumbled mess of a re-election campaign for Biden and later Kamala Harris. Coming into 2025, the president was already burdened by some of the highest disapproval ratings of any incoming president in history.
The Independent
11 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump's bill comes due: Tariff day is here ... but if TACO's on the menu, the charade is over
Donald Trump's tariff deadline is once again coming down to the wire but now, the bill is due — and Trump has a choice before him: enforce the levies against the nation's trading partners or TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). The president said in July that the end of his 90-day pause would be marked by a month of last-minute dealmaking, as countries attempted to get agreements in place before the resumption of tariff enforcement on Aug. 1. As Wednesday morning dawned in DC, the president seemingly indicated that his days of 'pauses' were over. In a Truth Social post, Trump declared: 'THE AUGUST FIRST DEADLINE IS THE AUGUST FIRST DEADLINE — IT STANDS STRONG, AND WILL NOT BE EXTENDED.' Yet, at the same time, he undermined that message. A separate announcement from his Truth account declared progress in talks with Claudia Sheinbaum, president of Mexico. Greasing the wheels for those talks, Trump said, would be what he just said wouldn't happen: a tariff pause (sort of). The president wrote (in lowercase this time) that tariffs with Mexico would continue at current rates for another 90 days. 'The complexities of a Deal with Mexico are somewhat different than other Nations because of both the problems, and assets, of the Border,' Trump offered as explanation. So where does that leave American businesses, and the White House itself as it pertains to Trump's credibility on trade issues? Some experts were flummoxed on how businesses should plan for the future after enforcement begins on Friday. They pointed to the president's preference for informal trade agreements, which many argue do not constitute real agreements at all, to wit: — The White House has not released specific details or produced written agreements to back up many of the president's claims. — Because they did not receive congressional approval, there's no formal enforcement measures. — And Trump's own proclamations often differ from those of his foreign negotiating partners. David Townsend, a trade-focused litigator with Dorsey & Whitney, also noted the lack of details governing rules of origin for imported products. 'There could be different rules of origin for different products, or across the different trade agreements. From an investment and trade standpoint, it is very difficult to tell how these rules of origin will operate, what the impact will be on investments, and to particular industries. Companies will need to wait until the details are released of how the particular agreements will operate,' he told The Independent. 'In short, it is not possible to predict how these trade agreements will work in practice, how certain businesses will be impacted by them, and what kind of import compliance challenges will arise under the new agreements,' Townsend said. CNN's Richard Quest summed up his own feelings: 'I stand by my comment that the trade deals being announced are largely garbage because they are so uncertain with no mechanisms for enforcement or even any idea of how to make them happen.' The uncertainty around what the trade landscape will look like come Monday could be the reason why the Dow Jones Industrial Average stalled this week and didn't seem to react upon news of Trump's tariff extension with Mexico. But experts across the board agree that it seems as if Trump's reciprocal tariffs are now here to stay in some fashion — the only question remaining is how high they will go. Trade groups representing industries targeted by individual tariff rates continue to push for zero-to-zero tariff rates, but those seem out of reach after the announcements of recent handshake-deals with the EU and UK. With those new tariff rates, it's also a certainty that consumers will continue to feel the price hikes that American retailers began exhibiting over the summer, only to a higher degree. The bill is finally coming due. Gemma Thompson, a senior consultant with a firm specializing on supply-chain logisitics, explained: " For EU exporters, the challenge now is how to absorb or pass on the additional cost. Where margins are tighter, we're likely to see knock-on effects to US consumers.' Given the murkiness around enforcement measures and the unequal 'reciprocal rates,' Thompson noted, US importers will also likely explore routing goods through lower-tariff countries acting as middlemen. With Trump putting his foot down on Thursday, it's clear that the coverage of Wall Street's derisive 'TACO' nickname irked the president, or at the very least drove home the notion that he risked his credibility crossing further self-drawn red lines. But what remains to be seen is how much damage was already done by the president's 90-day pause and the general campaign to keep his supporters on his side Trump has launched since January. Amid a firestorm around Jeffrey Epstein and after the exhausting marathon fight to pass the 'big, beautiful' budget reconciliation package, many businesses and even some trading partners around the world could be gambling that the US president is running low on political capital. A sudden downturn in the markets or painful consumer price hikes could be more than the president can handle, in the view of his critics.
