The decision to call in Bondi for a transcribed interview instead of a sworn and recorded deposition is heavily criticized.
President Donald Trump filed a new version of his $10 billion libel lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its parent company News Corp. over an article about his alleged close ties to Jeffrey Epstein, after an earlier version of the suit was tossed out by a judge.
President Trump on Wednesday refiled his $10 billion lawsuit against Dow Jones & Company, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, for an article covering a birthday letter to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A federal judge dismissed the case last month, ruling the president failed to allege “actual malice” against the news outlet.…
Bondi is set to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Friday.
President Donald Trump has refiled his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal — and to bolster his case, he's leaning on a key witness interview conducted by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the president's own former personal attorney.In an amended complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in Miami, Trump's lawyers cited a July 2025 interview with Ghislaine Maxwell as evidence that the Journal's reporting was false. What the filing doesn't mention is that the interview was conducted by Blanche who was serving as Deputy Attorney General at the time and has since been elevated to Acting Attorney General — and who granted Maxwell limited immunity to participate.The lawsuit centers on a July 2025 Wall Street Journal story reporting that a bawdy birthday letter bearing Trump's name was included in a 2003 album Maxwell compiled to celebrate Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday. The letter, the Journal reported, featured a typewritten note framed by a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman, with a signature mimicking pubic hair. Trump has denied writing it.The amended complaint argues Maxwell's statements to federal investigators undercut the Journal's reporting. "Maxwell has stated, subject to penalty of perjury for lying to a federal officer, that she did not remember President Trump submitting a letter for Epstein's 50th birthday," the filing reads.But when Blanche asked Maxwell directly during the two-day July interview, her answer was notably narrow. "Do you remember President Trump submitting a letter or a card or a note?" Blanche asked. "I don't," Maxwell replied. Asked again, she said, "I do not remember."Her statement came in an interview which came with a limited immunity agreement, after which Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security prison in Texas — a facility that typically does not house sex offenders.When later pressed on whether Maxwell was a credible witness, Blanche told CNN it was "an impossible question to answer."The original lawsuit was dismissed in April by U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles, who ruled Trump's complaint came "nowhere close" to the actual malice standard required of public figures in defamation cases. The amended complaint attempts to clear that bar by arguing the Journal ignored Maxwell's lack of recollection, buried Trump's denials, and published without ever producing the letter itself.Dow Jones, which owns the Journal, said at the time of the original filing that it would vigorously defend against the suit. "We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting," a spokesperson said.
Latest in series of high-profile women in Trump world to deal with serious health issues
President Donald Trump is taking a second crack at suing the Wall Street Journal over bombshell claims regarding Jeffrey Epstein.Trump refiled a defamation suit against the newspaper Wednesday over its report about a crude birthday card it claimed Trump sent Epstein — a card Trump claimed didn't exist despite it later being released as part of the Epstein investigation.An earlier case was tossed for not meeting standards required for defamation cases.The card featured a salacious message wishing the billionaire child trafficker that every day be a "wonderful secret" and outlined by a crude doodle of an undressed woman.Trump's first lawsuit against the Journal was rejected by Miami-based U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. Gayles found that the lawsuit failed to allege the Journal acted with actual malice, which is required in defamation suits brought by public figures under the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan case.The updated suit was rewritten to address this, with Trump's lawyers alleging the paper “recklessly disregarded whether the Defamatory Statements were true.”Trump has a long history of threatened and actual legal action against newspapers that publish damaging information on him, and sometimes threatens specific journalists like longtime New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
Fired U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi could be stripped of her law license after a retired judge and 120 Florida legal experts filed a sweeping ethics complaint against her with the Florida Bar.The complaint was brought by Peggy Quince, a retired chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court, and carries the signatures of more than 120 judges, law professors, and attorneys. It is their second attempt; the Bar turned away an earlier filing last June on the grounds that it doesn't investigate sitting federal appointees. But President Donald Trump's dismissal of Bondi in April means that obstacle is no longer in the way."No one lawyer is above the law," Quince said in a statement.The coalition behind the complaint — which includes Lawyers Defending American Democracy, the Democracy Defenders Fund, and Lawyers for the Rule of Law — alleges Bondi pressured DOJ attorneys to bend their ethical obligations or face termination.Much of the filing focuses on Bondi's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, accusing her of misleading the public about a supposed "client list" she claimed was on her desk, then overseeing a document release so poorly managed that unredacted names, birth dates, and photos of victims were exposed.Attorneys for survivors called one January release "the single most egregious violation of victim privacy in one day in United States history." Virginia Canter, chief counsel at the Democracy Defenders Fund, said, "Lawyers have been disbarred for less."The complaint further alleges Bondi greenlit prosecutions without probable cause against Trump adversaries — including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose cases a federal judge dismissed in November — and against protesters detained during immigration raids. Bondi's successor, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, re-indicted Comey in late April on a separate charge.The Democracy Defenders Fund says Bondi had "created an environment in which DOJ lawyers were induced to engage in acts they were ethically prohibited from doing, under threat of suspension or termination — or were fired for not doing so."The Justice Department called the complaint, "a baseless and pathetic media stunt conjured up by inept attorneys desperate for relevance," according to the Miami Herald.Bondi is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee Friday over the Epstein investigation — but only in a closed-door session, not the public sworn testimony Democrats sought."Bondi must testify under oath, on camera, for the public to see," Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) wrote on X.Since her firing, Bondi has been recovering from thyroid cancer surgery. Trump has since appointed her to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Legal action claims newspaper tarnished reputation by describing card to Jeffrey Epstein as bearing his signatureDonald Trump has refiled a defamation lawsuit seeking at least $10bn in damages against the Wall Street Journal over its reporting on his alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein, after a judge threw out an earlier version over legal deficiencies.The lawsuit is one of several the US president has brought in his personal capacity against news organisations and is part of what critics say is a wider pressure campaign against the media. Continue reading...