Trump Sets Crazy Condition for Settling $10 Billion IRS Lawsuit

“Thus, allowing President Trump to proceed with investigations of actual malice, where his initial attempt to litigate a defamation claim failed, is exactly the type of ‘costly but meritless litigation’ that the Eleventh Circuit has warned against,” Gayles wrote in his ruling.

Trump continued Newspaper in July 2025, claiming that the newspaper’s report that Trump had submitted an explicit letter and drawing on a Jeffrey Epstein birthday album was defamatory, denying the report’s accuracy. In April, Gayles dismissed the complaint, saying Trump failed to make a plausible allegation that the newspaper acted with “actual malice” but gave Trump the opportunity to file an amended complaint, which he did.

But now Trump can’t use the discovery process to gather evidence that the Newspaper defamed him, although Gayles left the door open for him to file another amended complaint. It appears unlikely he will succeed a third time, as the House Oversight Committee included the birthday book, along with Trump’s drawing, in a release of Epstein documents from his estate in September.