Trump refiles $10B lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over Epstein report

President Donald Trump on Wednesday filed a new lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, criticizing its reporting on his alleged connection to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Trump sued the publication last year after it published a story alleging that he’d sent Epstein a bawdy birthday note for the financier’s 50th birthday.

The president argued that the Journal engaged in an act of actual malice with its reporting on the story—a claim that U.S. District Court Judge Darrin Gayles last month dismissed. But in his dismissal, Gayles gave Trump time to file a new complaint that included evidence to better support his allegation of actual malice. Trump’s legal team filed that revised complaint on Wednesday.

What is “actual malice,” legally speaking? The U.S. Supreme Court defined “actual malice” in its 1964 decision New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. To engage in an act of actual malice, a reporter needs to publish a report, “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”

What has The Wall Street Journal had to say about this? The Journal told the court in a motion to dismiss Trump’s claim that its report about the birthday note that Trump sent to Epstein is true, it is not defamatory, and it was not published while the publication had good reason to believe it could be false.

Dig deeper: Read Elizabeth Black’s report in The Sift about how a purported suicide note from Epstein was made public for the first time earlier this month.