The US president has renewed his legal battle against the newspaper by filing a revised defamation suit against its publishers after a court last month rejected his previous appeal.
The controversy centers on a report about an “obscene” birthday letter the paper said Trump had sent to stockbroker and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A Florida district court dismissed the original lawsuit in April. Judge Darrin P. Gales ruled that Trump did not make a reasonable showing that the newspaper acted “with malice” when it published the alleged letter to Epstein, and that the president’s lawsuit did not meet basic legal criteria.
What Trump is asking for with the new appeal
The Wall Street Journal reported that, in his revised lawsuit, Trump again claims the newspaper acted with malice. The appeal also points to the fact that the president has repeatedly denied having any involvement in the letter.
As in his previous lawsuit, Trump is seeking at least $10 billion in damages.
What has come before
The Wall Street Journal last year reported on a letter sent to Epstein in 2003 for his 50th birthday and allegedly signed by Trump. According to the newspaper, the letter contained sexually suggestive text and the marker sketch of a female figure. Trump denied he was the one who wrote it.
The president then filed a lawsuit against the paper and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose media empire includes the WSJ, seeking $10 billion.
Trump has repeatedly targeted media organizations he considers hostile, including the Washington Post, CNN and the BBC.
Last year, after long resistance from Trump, Congress forced the Justice Department to begin releasing reams of documents and photos related to years of investigations.
Trump was among those who had relationships with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s. However, there is no evidence linking him to Epstein’s criminal activities, and the president has maintained that he was never “friendly with Jeffrey Epstein.”
