President Donald Trump’s legal team fired back on Monday after a federal judged threw out their case against The Wall Street Journal and owner Rupert Murdoch earlier that morning.

The $10 billion defamation suit was filed by the president after the newspaper published a story about a letter including a lewd drawing of a woman and strange allegedly written by Trump and addressed to Jeffrey Epstein on the occasion of the latter’s 50th birthday.

On Monday, District Court Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the case, writing that Trump’s lawyers had “not plausibly alleged that the Defendants published the Article with actual malice.”

A spokesperson for the president’s legal team revealed that it intends to appeal the matter in a statement that read: “President Trump will follow Judge Gayles’s ruling and guidance to refile this powerhouse lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other Defendants. The President will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in Fake News to mislead the American People.”

The president himself followed up by declaring “Our powerful case against The Wall Street Journal, and other defendants, was asked to be re-filed by the Judge. It is not a termination, it is a suggested re-filing, and we will be, as per the Order, re-filing an updated lawsuit on or before April 27th,” in a post on Truth Social.

Dow Jones & Company, the Journal‘s parent company, released its own statement, which read:

We are pleased with the judge’s decision to dismiss this complaint. We stand behind the reliability, rigor and accuracy of The Wall Street Journal’s reporting.

Trump has vehemently denied writing the letter, and announced his intention to sue after the story’s publication last summer.

“The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch, personally, were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE and, if they print it, they will be sued. Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so. The Editor of The Wall Street Journal, Emma Tucker, was told directly by Karoline Leavitt, and by President Trump, that the letter was a FAKE, but Emma Tucker didn’t want to hear that. Instead, they are going with a false, malicious, and defamatory story anyway,” wrote Trump on Truth Social at the time.

“President Trump will be suing The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorp, and Mr. Murdoch, shortly. The Press has to learn to be truthful, and not rely on sources that probably don’t even exist. President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos/ABC, 60 Minutes/CBS, and others, and looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal. It has truly turned out to be a ‘Disgusting and Filthy Rag’ and, writing defamatory lies like this, shows their desperation to remain relevant. If there were any truth at all on the Epstein Hoax, as it pertains to President Trump, this information would have been revealed by Comey, Brennan, Crooked Hillary, and other Radical Left Lunatics years ago. It certainly would not have sat in a file waiting for ‘TRUMP’ to have won three Elections. This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS!” he concluded.

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