Well, we should say that this is apparently true. We are getting word from multiple sources that Trump has officially sued the Wall Street Journal for defamation.
The second one adds verisimilitude to the claim.
Just to catch you up, as we reported, last night the Wall Street Journal published an article that claimed that Trump wrote a 50th Birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein, that was … um … bawdy and suggested that Trump knew some unspecified unspoken thing about Epstein and that they had certain things in common. And if you pay enough attention to how the left thinks, you know exactly where their minds go: ‘ERMGAWD Trump is making a winking reference to their shared interest in children!’ Trump for his part claims that he never wrote any such letter, which logically speaking, means he is claiming it is a forgery. We will note that the Wall Street Journal claimed to have seen the letter, but didn't publicly release a copy.
Assuming that the story is based on a forgery, that doesn’t mean that any of the people giving it publicity necessarily knew it was a forgery, however. For instance, we believe the Bush Texas Air National Guard documents were bad forgeries, but we never thought anyone at CBS—and certainly not Dan Rather—forged those documents. We think they were tricked by an unknown third party or parties. And while it was an embarrassing error for 60 Minutes to air the document—Dan Rather of all people should have been able to remember what documents that were produced by a typewriter looked like—the inexcusable scandal came when they went for weeks on end refusing to even confront the criticisms honestly. Similarly, if Trump is right and it is a forgery, the Wall Street Journal might be the victim of some unidentified charlatan.
At this point in time, the Wall Street Journal has not publicly released this letter or even shown it to Trump. That being said we don’t believe Trump wrote it because 1) it doesn’t sound like anything he would write and 2) if the Biden Administration had any dirt on Trump, it would have come out before the last election. They were trying everything they could to stop him from getting back into the oval office.
Indeed, earlier today, we reported on how Tulsi Gabbard exposed how the Obama Administration did their level best to undermine Trump’s first term.
Still, we won’t say it is impossible for Trump to have written it, but we will say that anyone claiming he did bears a heavy burden to prove it.
But that being said, we haven’t been able to see the complaint just yet. And for the record, if you are wondering why it is an accusation of libel and not slander, we will let J. Jonah Jameson explain it to you:
(J.K. Simmons is the absolutely GOAT in that role.)
Humor aside, while this lawsuit has obviously been written and filed quickly, we don’t think it is terribly complicated. Trump’s lawyers will have to allege that the Wall Street Journal 1) published 2) false statements about Trump that are 3) defamatory in nature, 4) with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not, 5) causing damage. We think most of this would be easy to show, except on the issue of whether the Journal had knowledge that the allegations were false or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false. That is a special requirement when the person defamed is a ‘public figure’ (a public official or celebrity, more or less). But while that is a high bar, its not an impossible one to get over as we saw in the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard case here in Virginia.
On to reactions:
Sure, Jan. The Autopen Administration had this evidence and withheld it, for reasons. eye roll
Well, Musk apparently deleted the post and indicated he regretted it. And Musk never alleged there was a document. Instead, he seemed to be speculating.
Or you might get extra conspiratorial and think that maybe Musk has faked his falling out with Trump just like Trump did with Netanyahu. After all, the attacks on Tesla vehicles suddenly stopped, didn’t they?
We think that is a joke about the way Trump writes his TruthSocial posts and we think that is kind of funny.
Sure, ask ABC and CBS about that.
Trump voice: ‘It will be a big, beautiful, yuge library! You have never seen a presidential library like this. You won’t believe it, how yuge it will be.’
That’s a good question and right now we don’t know the answer. We are going to assume millions of dollars will be at stake. And we won’t be surprised if it settles.
Finally, we will point out that this case was filed in Federal Court in the Southern District of Florida, which is relatively friendly territory to Trump. But a person might wonder: ‘Why is this a federal case?’ After all, defamation law is typically a creature of state law, and thus it would seem appropriate for the case to be filed in state court—probably in Florida.
But you see, under the Constitution, Federal Courts can hear cases when the parties have diversity of citizenship, meaning they are ‘citizens’ of two separate states. The idea is that a Marylander might feel he can’t get a fair trial in a Virginia state court, so if there is a suit between a Virginian and a Marylander, he can bring it in federal court, with the belief that federal courts would be more neutral between the two states.
'But,' you might ask, 'what makes a person a ‘citizen’ of Florida?' Well, it’s funny you should ask, you imaginary person we made up, because we are working on a post talking exactly about that when it comes to Adam Schiff and his mortgage troubles.
So, stay tuned. And maybe make some popcorn? Because Schiff has a big problem.
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Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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