As of Monday, April 13, 2026, a United States Judge dismissed President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal. The lawsuit that the President of the United States was seeking 10 billion dollars in damages, was filed in July 2025 after the newspaper released a story about a birthday letter bearing Trump’s signature that was written to now deceased Jefferey Epstein, a convicted sex offender. The Wall Street Journal reached out to Trump before running the story and made his denial to do so public.
This is a momentary win for democracy. The meritless lawsuit was an attempt to stifle the freedom of the press protections that have been legally mandated in this country. This is a step in the right direction toward strengthening protections for press freedom. In this case, Trump could not prove that the newspaper had acted with actual malice when publishing the story, and the lawsuit was dismissed. Don’t celebrate too soon; the President has until April 27th to file an amended version of the lawsuit, and he stated on the Truth social media outlet that he has not given up.
This isn’t the first time Trump has sued a news outlet. On December 14, 2024, Trump won another defamation lawsuit against ABC News, with the payout amount being 15 million dollars and another 1 million for legal fees. The lawsuit was in response to an interview with George Stephanopoulos, who stated that Trump had been found by the courts to be “liable for rape.” The civil cases that Stephanopoulos was referencing stated that Trump was liable for “sexual abuse” and was ordered to pay a total of 88.3 million dollars to the plaintiff E Jean Carroll, who was sexually abused by Trump in 1996. PBS’s Michael R. Sisak reports that the money obtained from the settlement will be put into an account to help pay for Trump’s presidential library.
In 1913, Former president Theodore Roosevelt filed a defamation lawsuit against a newspaper that described him as an inebriate. Roosevelt ultimately won and was awarded 6 cents in damages because the goal was to protect his reputation, not to seek monetary gain. More than a century later, public accountability and transparency have once again become part of a bigger political conversation.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump pledged to release the files related to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. By December 2025, the issue had taken a more partisan tone. In a post on Truth Social, President Trump urged the release of the documents, specifically naming Democratic party members. Writing that the “Dems,” not Republicans, were connected to the Epstein scandal, reneging on his previous stance of full transparency for the American people. He also criticized what he calls a “witch hunt” against him and his administration.
The current controversy reveals a sad reality: disputes over reputation have evolved from upholding personal honor with minimal retribution to nitpicking over technical terms, all for massive monetary gain.
