Judge Dismisses Trump Defamation Suit Against The Wall Street Journal for a Second Time

A federal judge on Saturday dismissed for the second time President Trump's defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, according to a report from The Hill written by Suryatapa Chakraborty. The full report is available at The Hill's report on the dismissal.

The Hill reported that the lawsuit concerns an article published by the Journal about a letter sent to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. According to the same report, the president filed suit last year after the Journal published an article detailing a 2003 letter he allegedly sent to someone, but the summary of the report ends before naming the recipient, so that detail cannot be stated here.

The Hill's summary does not name the judge or the court in which the case was heard, and it does not describe the reasoning the judge gave for the ruling. It also does not state whether the president or the Journal has responded to the decision, or whether either side intends to appeal. No other outlet's reporting on the dismissal was available for this story, so every fact in it comes from The Hill.

The Hill's account also indicates that the Journal's article is the basis of the current dispute and that the earlier suit followed its publication. Taken together, the report describes one ruling, one earlier lawsuit, and one article at the center of the dispute, and it does not describe any further filings.

Sources: The Hill: Judge dismisses Trump’s defamation suit against WSJ a second time.