The Wall Street Journal is arguing that one detail matches its reporting about President Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
In a new legal filing, lawyers for Dow Jones, the company that owns the Wall Street Journal, argued that Trump "cannot" dispute that a signature appearing on a typewritten note and a sketch of a naked woman sent to Epstein resembles his own.
Trump sued the Wall Street Journal over an article about a book of letters compiled for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. He alleged that the paper defamed him by noting that the letter and sketch bear his signature.
Earlier this year, a court accepted the Journal's motion to dismiss because Trump couldn't prove actual malice in the article. Trump was able to revive a defamation claim, but Dow Jones's lawyers are again seeking to dismiss Trump's lawsuit in their new legal filing.
The defense lawyers are telling the court to throw out Trump's lawsuit because "the article is true." After the Journal reviewed the letter and sketch with Trump's signature, Epstein's estate released the "Birthday Book" to the House Oversight Committee in September.
"The article is true because the description of the letter 'bearing Trump's name' in the article is an entirely accurate description of the letter as it appears in the Birthday Book," the filing read.
"The article states that the Journal 'reviewed' the letter before publication and described its contents in detail (which exactly match the contents of the letter released by Congress)," the legal filing argued, adding that Trump doesn't even dispute the resemblance of his signature to the one in the birthday book "because he cannot."
