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COLUMN: Trump Loses to the Wall Street Journal — and the Epstein Case Refuses to Die

Jacques Pj Provost

2026-06-20 17:36:02

A Dead Man Who Refuses to Be Silenced

Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself in his cell on August 10, 2019. Seven years later, his shadow is longer than ever. It stretches all the way to the corridors of the White House, to federal courtrooms, and to the headlines that the President of the United States is desperately trying to erase. The dead do not speak, but their records scream.

The letter at the heart of this lawsuit was part of a scrapbook given to Epstein in 2003, on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. It bore Trump’s signature. According to the Wall Street Journal, it contained the wish that “every day be another wonderful secret.” And it was adorned with a hand-drawn silhouette of a nude woman. The kind of detail that no spin doctor can turn into a harmless anecdote.

The Mechanics of Presidential Denial

Trump denied it. He has always denied it. He called the Epstein affair a “Democratic hoax.” He resisted the release of the Justice Department documents for months. He only relented when the House of Representatives was about to pass a bill making the release mandatory—when the dam was about to break anyway. That’s not transparency. It’s damage control.

And yet, two months after the Wall Street Journal article, it was the Democrats in Congress who made the letter public in its entirety. What the newspaper had cautiously reported in summary form is now available to everyone. The $10 billion lawsuit was intended to punish a messenger—but the message had already gotten out.

What the judge actually said — and what Trump didn't want to hear

The Standard of Actual Malice

In U.S. defamation law, when the plaintiff is a public figure—and the President of the United States is the quintessential public figure—the bar is set astronomically high. One must prove what is known as “actual malice”: the media outlet knew the information was false, or it demonstrated reckless disregard for the truth. This is not a test of journalistic quality. It is a test of intent.

Judge Gayles methodically dismantled this claim. The Wall Street Journal reporters had included Trump’s denial in their article. They had contacted the White House, the Department of Justice, and the FBI to seek comment. In other words, they had done exactly what journalism requires. “The defendants attempted to conduct an investigation,” the judge noted, with a matter-of-fact tone that serves as a reminder of the fundamentals.

When the Evidence Works Against the Plaintiff

Here is the paradox that should give Trump’s lawyers pause: the more they detail the Wall Street Journal’s work, the more they prove that the newspaper acted in good faith. Every call made to the White House, every request for comment sent to the FBI, every sentence of denial included in the article—all of this constitutes living proof of a rigorous journalistic process. You cannot demonstrate a newspaper’s malice by showing that it did its job.

And yet, Trump’s team promises to return—with an “amended” complaint. Corrected. Improved. As if the problem were a matter of wording rather than substance. As if reality could be rewritten with enough commas.

The All-Out Offensive — When the President Declares War on the Media

One President, Four Lawsuits, Billions in Damages Sought

The Wall Street Journal isn’t the only one in the crosshairs. Donald Trump has filed a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times over similar articles about the Epstein letter—which was also dismissed, subject to all reservations. He is seeking $10 billion from the BBC over a video montage he deems misleading—the trial is set for February 2027. He has secured out-of-court settlements with CBS News and ABC News. The total amount of the claims exceeds the annual development aid budget of most G20 countries.

This is no longer just about defending one’s reputation. It’s a strategy. Suing, demanding astronomical sums, forcing the media to choose between the cost of a trial and silence. Whether the lawsuit succeeds or not is secondary. The primary goal is the deterrent effect. The message sent to every newsroom in the country: reporting on Trump and Epstein is expensive, even if you’re right.

The Precedent of Intimidation

CBS News paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit related to an interview with Kamala Harris. ABC News settled out of court. These out-of-court settlements do not prove that Trump was right—they prove that the cost of resistance sometimes exceeds the cost of capitulation. And every settlement emboldens the strategy. Every check signed by a media outlet becomes proof of concept for the next lawsuit.

The Wall Street Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch—a longtime Trump ally—did not cave. The New York Times did not cave. The BBC is preparing for trial. But how many smaller newsrooms, lacking the resources of these giants, have already given up on publishing investigations on this topic? No one knows that number. And that is precisely the point.

Melania takes the stage—and everyone is at a loss

A Public Statement That Defies Presidential Logic

If this story were a novel, last week’s chapter would be the one no one saw coming. Melania Trump, in a public statement as surprising as it was rare, denounced a “smear campaign” against her. She denied any personal connection to Epstein. And above all—above all—she called on Congress to allow Epstein’s victims to testify.

Read that sentence again. The First Lady of the United States is asking that the victims of a sexual predator whom her husband associated with for years be allowed to speak before Congress. All while her husband is spending millions on legal fees to prevent public discussion of this very same issue. According to Radio-Canada, the journalists present were “bewildered.” That’s putting it mildly.

Two conflicting strategies under one roof

Donald Trump wants to turn the page. He’s said it. He’s shouted it. He’s sued anyone who refuses to turn it with him. Melania Trump, on the other hand, seems to want to tear out the page and read it aloud. These two positions are irreconcilable. Either the victims testify and the case is further investigated, or we bury everything and move on. We can’t do both.

And yet, the White House has offered no explanation for this contradiction. No clarification. No context. Silence, in this specific case, is not golden—it’s an admission of inconsistency.

The Real Issue — Press Freedom as Collateral Damage

What “with all reservations” Means for Democracy

A dismissal “with all reservations” is not a definitive victory for The Wall Street Journal. It is a reprieve. It means that Trump can come back, again and again, with amended versions of his complaint, forcing the newspaper to mobilize its lawyers, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees, and divert resources that could be used for journalism. The process itself is the punishment.

This strategy has a name in the Anglo-Saxon legal world: SLAPP—Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Lawsuits designed not to win, but to wear down. To turn the law into a weapon of attrition. To make the cost of the truth higher than the cost of silence. When the plaintiff is the President of the United States, with the resources of the federal government behind him, the imbalance becomes staggering.

The New York Times v. Sullivan Precedent Is in Jeopardy

The “actual malice” standard that protected the Wall Street Journal this week dates back to 1964, to the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan ruling. It is the cornerstone of American press freedom. Without this standard, no media outlet could criticize an elected official without risking bankruptcy. Trump has publicly called for a review of this legal precedent. Some of the judges he has appointed support this. If this standard falls, it is not just one newspaper that loses—it is the entire First Amendment that is shaken.

And yet, this week, the standard held. An Obama-appointed judge applied it. The question is: for how much longer?

The victims—the ones conspicuously absent from this legal battle

While billionaires battle it out in court

Somewhere amid this avalanche of billion-dollar lawsuits, legal maneuvers, and combative press releases, there are women. Women who were teenagers when Jeffrey Epstein recruited, manipulated, and exploited them. Women whose names do not appear in any of the headlines about the $10 billion being sought from The Wall Street Journal. Women whom Melania Trump herself invited to testify—but whom no one at the highest levels of power seems in any hurry to listen to.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019. He died in August 2019. Seven years later, the public debate centers on a president’s reputation, not on justice for his victims. The documents have been released in dribs and drabs. The testimonies remain fragmentary. The alleged accomplices—with the exception of Ghislaine Maxwell—have never been prosecuted. And the president, who could order the Department of Justice to speed up the investigations, prefers to use that same department to prosecute newspapers.

The Shift in Focus

This may be the most effective tactic in this saga: turning the alleged perpetrator into the alleged victim. Trump is no longer the man who associated with Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s. He is the one being “smeared.” He is no longer the one who resisted the release of the documents. He is the one “fighting fake news.” The reversal is so complete that the subject itself has changed—we no longer talk about what Epstein did; we talk about what the media has written.

And yet, the letter exists. The photo album exists. The signature exists. The photos of Epstein and Trump together exist. Democratic lawmakers regularly hold them up in Congress. No lawsuit, no monetary claim, no press release can undo what has been.

The war in Iran as an unintended smokescreen

When Geopolitics Overshadows Domestic Scandals

Radio-Canada notes that the Epstein case had been “overshadowed for several weeks by the war in Iran.” This sentence deserves closer attention. A major military conflict in the Middle East had the side effect—perhaps unintentional, perhaps very intentional—of pushing the most damaging scandal of the Trump presidency out of the headlines. You don’t have to believe in a conspiracy to see that the timing is remarkable.

Melania’s intervention brought Epstein back into the debate. Judge Gayles’s dismissal of the case prolongs the media cycle. But for how long? The next escalation in Iran, the next trade crisis, the next inflammatory tweet will be enough to shift the focus. That is the curse of 24/7 news: everything is urgent, so nothing takes priority.

Selective Memory as a Tool of Power

Trump knows this better than anyone: the public forgets. Not out of stupidity—but out of information overload. When every day brings a new crisis, a new lawsuit, a new scandal, the human brain does what it does best: it filters. And in this filtering process, complex, long-standing, legally labyrinthine cases like the Epstein case systematically lose out to the urgent issues of the moment. A $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal? That was yesterday. Today, there’s a war.

And yet, the victims do not forget. They cannot afford the luxury of information overload.

The Letter — Back to the Subject of the Scandal

What Words Say When We Really Read Them

“May every day be another wonderful secret.” Let’s take this sentence seriously. Not as a legal document. Not as a political weapon. As words written by one man to another—a man we now know ran a sex trafficking ring involving minors. The word “secret,” in this context, is not insignificant. Nor is it criminal—in 2003, no one publicly knew what Epstein was doing. But it’s chilling in hindsight.

The sketch of a nude woman scrawled on the letter adds a layer of unease that the president’s denial does not dispel. Trump says he did not write this letter. The document bears his signature. The album was turned over to the congressional committee by Epstein’s estate. Someone is lying. And in a country where the president sues newspapers that report on the existence of this letter rather than demanding an independent handwriting analysis, the question of who is lying remains deliberately unanswered.

Why Transparency Would Be the Best Defense

If Trump did not write this letter, the simplest and most devastating proof would be a comparative handwriting analysis, conducted by independent experts and made public. Cost: a few thousand dollars. Time: a few weeks. Impact: definitive. Instead, he is spending millions on lawsuits that do not answer the fundamental question. When the most effective defense is also the cheapest, choosing the most expensive option speaks volumes.

Perhaps Trump’s lawyers have good reasons for preferring the courtroom to the lab. Perhaps the legal strategy is more sophisticated than it appears. But from the perspective of public opinion, the calculation is simple: an innocent person proves their innocence. A guilty person attacks the messenger.

Murdoch vs. Trump — An Alliance on the Brink of Collapse

When the right-wing media empire publishes what Trump wants to hide

Here is perhaps the most telling detail of this whole affair: The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp, Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate. Murdoch, the man who turned Fox News into the mouthpiece of the American right. Murdoch, the longtime ally of the conservative movement. Murdoch, whose media empire helped elect Trump in 2016 and 2024. And yet, it is his newspaper that Trump is suing for ten billion dollars.

This lawsuit is not just an attack on the press. It’s a message to the entire conservative ecosystem: even allies are not immune. Even those who brought Trump to power must choose between their journalistic integrity and their proximity to power. The Wall Street Journal chose integrity. The price of that choice now runs into the billions.

The Editorial Staff vs. the Shareholder

We must commend something here. The editorial staff of The Wall Street Journal published this article fully aware of who owned the newspaper and who would be targeted. They published it by including Trump’s denial, contacting all parties involved, and following every step of the journalistic process—and they stood their ground in the face of the lawsuit. In a media landscape where CBS and ABC have chosen to pay rather than fight, this resistance is no small matter. It is necessary.

Because the day even the Wall Street Journal gives in—the day even the editorial staff of a newspaper backed by a billionaire empire yields to a president’s legal threats—there will be no one left to ask the questions no one wants to hear.

What This Decision Means—and What It Doesn't Mean

A Tenuous Victory for the Press

Let’s be clear: Judge Gayles’s ruling is not an acquittal for the Wall Street Journal. It is not a judgment on the merits of the case. It is a dismissal of the complaint in its current form, with the possibility that Trump could refile. The newspaper is not off the hook—it has merely been given a reprieve. The next version of the complaint could be better drafted, better argued, and harder to dismiss. Trump’s lawyers have unlimited resources and a client who never backs down.

But what this decision confirms is that the U.S. legal framework, for now, still protects the media’s right to report facts that are embarrassing to those in power. The Sullivan standard holds. Judges apply it. And a president seeking ten billion dollars must still prove malice—not merely his dissatisfaction.

The Real Question No One Is Asking

Since the beginning of this saga, one question has remained unanswered, and it is not a legal one. It is a moral one. Here it is: if Donald Trump has nothing to hide regarding Jeffrey Epstein, why is every fiber of his presidency mobilized to prevent anyone from talking about it?

Innocent people sometimes file defamation lawsuits. It happens. But innocent people don’t resist the publication of documents for months on end, don’t dismiss investigations as “hoaxes,” don’t simultaneously sue four major media outlets for a combined total exceeding $35 billion, and don’t let their own wife publicly contradict their strategy without reacting. This behavior does not resemble that of a man who has been wrongly accused. It resembles that of a man who is building walls around the truth.

After the verdict—the fight continues, but for whom?

Lawyers Make Promises, Victims Wait

Trump’s lawyers have promised to return. The Wall Street Journal is preparing for another round. The New York Times is awaiting mediation. The BBC is preparing for its trial in 2027. Meanwhile, Epstein’s victims—the very ones Melania Trump herself said deserved to be heard—remain in the shadows of this war between titans. Their voices are drowned out by the clamor of billion-dollar lawsuits, combative press releases, and headlines about legal strategies.

And yet, they are the ones who hold the truth. Not the lawyers. Not the judges. Not the editorialists. The women who were in Epstein’s residences. The women who saw who came and went. The women whose testimonies could turn speculation into fact. But for that to happen, someone—in Congress, at the Department of Justice, or in the White House—would have to decide that the truth is worth more than political convenience.

Time as an Ally of Silence

Every month that passes works in favor of those who want to bury the Epstein case. Memories fade. Documents are lost. Witnesses grow older. Public opinion is waning. And legal proceedings—with their delays, appeals, and endless procedures—buy time. Time for other crises to take center stage. Time for Epstein’s name to become background noise rather than a wake-up call.

Judge Gayles gave Trump two weeks to respond. Two weeks is nothing in the judicial cycle. But it’s an eternity in the news cycle. By then, the world will have moved on. Iran. Tariffs. The next controversy. And the birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein will go back to slumber in the archives, waiting for someone to have the courage—or the legal obligation—to bring it back to life.

A Provisional Verdict on an Enduring Truth

What We Know for Certain

We know that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were acquainted for more than a decade. We know that a letter bearing Trump’s signature was found in one of Epstein’s birthday albums. We know that Trump has denied writing it. We know that The Wall Street Journal reported on its existence in a professional and well-documented manner. We know that a federal judge ruled that this coverage did not constitute defamation. And we know that the President of the United States would rather spend millions on legal fees than a few thousand on handwriting analysis.

What we don’t know can be summed up in one sentence: What did Donald Trump know about Jeffrey Epstein’s activities, and when did he know it? This question has no legal answer—not yet. It has no political answer—not as long as the executive branch controls the pace of the revelations. It will only be answered on the day when the victims can speak unfiltered, when the documents are published unredacted, and when American society decides that the truth about a sex trafficking ring involving minors matters more than a president’s reputation.

The Final Word

Ten billion dollars. That’s the price Trump is putting on silence. Judge Gayles ruled this week that the truth cannot be bought. Not yet. Not like that. Not today. But the fight has only just begun. And in this fight, the question is no longer who will win in court—it’s whether the court itself will remain a place where the truth still has a place.

Jeffrey Epstein is dead. His secrets, however, are very much alive. And no ten-billion-dollar lawsuit will be able to bury them with him.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost

Transparency Box

What This Article Is—and What It Is Not

This article is an opinion piece. It does not claim to be journalistically neutral. It analyzes public facts—a court ruling, documented legal proceedings, official statements—and subjects them to critical and editorial scrutiny. The facts reported come from verified media sources.

What I Know—and What I Don’t Know

I know what public documents, court rulings, and verified news reports reveal. I do not know whether Donald Trump wrote the letter to Jeffrey Epstein. I do not know what he knew about Epstein’s criminal activities. I do not claim to know. The questions raised in this column are legitimate precisely because they remain unanswered.

My role

My role is to interpret these facts, contextualize them within the framework of contemporary legal and political dynamics, and give them coherent meaning within the broader narrative of the transformations shaping our era. These analyses reflect expertise developed through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

Any future developments in the situation could, of course, alter the perspectives presented here. This article will be updated if major new official information is released, thereby ensuring the relevance and timeliness of the analysis provided.