Notorious P-Grabber Sues WSJ For Suggesting He Drew Boobs

On Friday, a federal judge in New York dismissed Donald Trump’s copyright suit against Bob Woodward and Simon and Schuster. So much for the president’s plan to extort $50 million from the publisher for conspiracy to collate and cobble! But when God closes a door, she opens a window. And so that very same day, Trump filed a $10 billion dollar defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal and its owner Rupert Murdoch.

Trump denies that in 2003 he contributed a crude drawing to a book of “bawdy letters” compiled for pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday, as reported by journalists Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo in their blockbuster article.

“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein,” he screeched on social media. “These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures.”

The New York Times and Washington Post promptly published articles documenting numerous line drawings the president contributed over the years to charities. Like the one described in the Journal, many of them are rendered in thick, black Sharpie and feature his unmistakable echocardiogram signature.

“I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else,” he blustered in an attempt to ward the paper off of publication.

And that much at least is true. Trump has a long history of suing news outlets for publishing unflattering stories. Twenty years ago, he sued New York Times reporter Tim O’Brien for reporting that his net worth was somewhere between $150–$250 million, far below Trump’s self‑reported $2.7–$6 billion. O’Brien ultimately prevailed, although the case dragged on through 2011.

“I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about,” Trump sneered.

And that seems to be the president’s guiding philosophy when it comes to litigation: It doesn’t matter what happens in court as long as you make the other guy bleed.

Which is a lucky thing, because Trump always loses in court. His lawsuit against CNN got tossed. As did his suits against the New York Times and Washington Post. His RICO trollsuit against Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and half of DC cost him a million dollars in sanctions. And his tortious deplatforming suits against YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter went nowhere until he got elected again and Mark Zuckerberg used his as a vehicle for a peace offering, AKA a bribe.

In fact, Trump’s only courtroom “wins” have been settlements extorted after his election from media companies cutting their losses when faced a with a madman controlling the levers of power.

In some sense, this newest suit against the Journal is of a piece with all the others. It’s ridiculous on its face and only “works” as an angry press release stapled to a $402 check to cover the federal filing fee. And yet it cannot be divorced from the larger context, in which Trump’s base is tearing itself apart over Jeffrey Epstein. After years of winking at Qanon and Pizzagate hoaxers, Trump finds himself unable to halt the conspiratorial frenzy — particularly after the FBI and Attorney General Pam Bondi spectacularly bungled the much hyped release of the “Epstein Files.”

Garbage pleadings

The complaint itself is par for the Trump course, consisting of just 18 threadbare pages larded with inflammatory rhetoric and screenshots of the supposedly defamatory story and its republication on social media. As to actual law … not so much.

It alleges that calling Trump Epstein’s “pal” and saying he drew women’s breasts amounts to defamation per se, a subset of defamation involving allegations of crime or moral turpitude. Clearly it is not defamatory at all (much less defamatory per se) to report that a notorious philanderer drew boobs for his friend’s birthday.

But if the defamatory bit was “to attempt and inextricably link President Trump to Epstein,” well, Trump was Epstein’s pal 25 years ago. We’ve all seen that nasty video of them gawking at young women on the dance floor and read the New York magazine piece where Trump said “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

As for the actual malice standard required by NYT v. Sullivan, the complaint merely states in conclusory fashion that is satisfied:

The statements were published by Defendants with actual malice, oppression and fraud in that they were aware at the time of the falsity of the publication and thus, made said publications in bad faith, out of disdain and ill-will directed towards Plaintiff without any regard for the truth.

How do we know that the Journal was “aware at the time of the falsity of the publication?” Because Trump called up Murdoch to yell at him and deny it.

Notably, Murdoch and Thomson authorized the publication of the Article after President Trump put them both on notice that the letter was fake and nonexistent.

Except that it is well established that mere denial by the plaintiff will not establish that the defendant knew the story was false as required by the Sullivan standard. And just two weeks ago, an 11th Circuit panel, including two Trump appointees, affirmed the dismissal of golfer Patrick Reed’s defamation claims against the Golf Channel because “Reed’s complaints include a litany of conclusory allegations that are merely formulaic recitations of the ‘actual malice’ element which, alone, are insufficient.”

(Reed was pissed because commentator Brandel Chamblee criticized him for decamping from the PGA to the Saudi-backed LIV golf. Trump hosted merger talks between the rival tours at his Florida golf club after welcoming Prince “Bonesaw” back to polite company. Fire the writers!)

Trump is represented here by Alejandro Brito, a commercial litigator from Coral Gables who rode along for the disastrous CNN suit, but also for the successful attempt to wring cash out of ABC after George Stephanopoulos inartfully referred to Trump as an “adjudicated rapist.”

This latest complaint also contains some hilarious typos.

“$10 billion dollars?” Is that like ten billion dollars SQUARED? By our math that is ONE HUNDRED QUINTILLION DOLLARS.

But whyyyyy?

It’s not clear what Trump actually “wants” here. He’s had good luck lately filing ridiculous trollsuits leveraging unsubtle threats by executive agencies as a means to extract obeisance from media companies. But it’s one thing to file a SLAPP suit against the Des Moines Register for tortious whiffing a poll. The worst thing that can happen there is your lawyers stepping on every rake in Iowa as they explore the vagaries of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It’s quite another to pour gas on a fire that’s engulfing your administration and threatening to divide your base.

Because Safdar and Palazzolo are very experienced reporters. In fact, Palazzolo won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking the news about Michael Cohen paying Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about her encounter with Trump. It is very unlikely that Safdar, Palazzolo, and the Wall Street Journal would go to press without all their ducks in a row, and so they are almost certainly in a position to call Trump’s bluff. Just as The Atlantic responded to White House denials that cabinet members discussed classified war plans over Signal by publishing the screenshots, the Journal can punch back by publishing the sketch. And even if it doesn’t, this imbroglio is fraught with peril for Trump himself.

Specifically, the article claims that “Pages from the leather-bound album—assembled before Epstein was first arrested in 2006—are among the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, according to people who have reviewed the pages.” If that is correct, then the DOJ has this document, and its failure to produce it will just feed accusations of a coverup.

Moreover, there appear to be multiple participants in the event, including Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s girlfriend/procurer, who compiled the messages from Epstein’s “pals” and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence. The reporters also spoke to “people who were involved in the process” of assembling the birthday book, which was printed by New York City bookbinder, Herbert Weitz.

Put simply, this isn’t the apocryphal pee tape. There are clearly witnesses and a paper trail that will make this maximally unpleasant for Trump if he keeps dragging the story into the next news cycle — and that’s before this case even gets to discovery.

And the Journal seems to have no interest in backing down. Dow Jones, the paper’s parent company, put out a statement saying, “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”

So, now what?

The case was filed in the Southern District of Florida and will almost certainly be assigned to a judge today. There are a fair number of Trump appointees in this district, including the infamous Judge Aileen Cannon. But it was docketed in the Miami division, so he’s unlikely to wind up in her courtroom in Fort Pierce.

Notably this is the same district where Judge Anuraang Singhal, another Trump pick, dismissed Trump’s CNN suit because their reporting calling him out for “the Big Lie” was “opinion, not factually false statements, and therefore are not actionable.” Judge Singhal also dismissed Alan Dershowitz’s LOLsuit against CNN for supposed “defamatory” reporting on his comments about the first Trump impeachment.

Dershowitz was deeply enmeshed in the Epstein story: He negotiated Epstein’s first disgracefully lenient plea deal. He, too, contributed a page to the birthday book. And he admits he got a massage at Epstein’s house, but insists that it was from an old Russian woman, and he kept his underpants on because he and his wife have a “perfect, perfect sex life.” (Fire the writers again! And vomit!)

Last week, Dersh penned an opinion piece in the Journal — where else? — insisting that there was no Epstein client list, and if there was it wouldn’t include “any current officeholders.” Ummmm …

All of which is to say that this is an odd time for a lawsuit reminding the public of all the allegations made against Trump and Dersh by Epstein’s victims. Trump seems to have lodged his foot in a trap of his own making, and is attempting to shoot the thing off with a very big gun.

Careful what you sue for, ‘cause you just might get it.

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Liz Dye produces the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast. You can subscribe to her Substack by clicking the logo: