Photo via aljazeera.com
Judge Dismisses Trump Lawsuit Against Wall Street Journal
A Miami federal judge permanently threw out Trump's $10 billion defamation suit over reporting on an alleged 2003 Epstein birthday letter, finding he failed to prove actual malice.
What happened
A federal judge has permanently dismissed President Donald Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. US District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami ruled on Saturday that Trump failed to prove the defendants published defamatory statements with actual malice—the legal standard required for public figures to win libel cases.
The lawsuit stemmed from a July 2025 Wall Street Journal article reporting that a letter bearing Trump's name was included in a 2003 birthday book compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday. The letter allegedly included sexually suggestive content. Trump has consistently denied writing the letter, calling it fake.
This is Trump's second loss on the same claims. Judge Gayles dismissed an initial version of the lawsuit in April, but Trump's legal team refiled with new allegations, including claims that Murdoch had told Trump during a phone call "I will handle it." Gayles rejected these amendments as well, saying Trump had "not plausibly alleged" actual malice and that the lawsuit attempted to "manufacture" flaws in the Journal's investigative reporting. He noted the Journal's story "did not ignore or minimize" Trump's denials but reported them alongside the reporting.
The dismissal came with prejudice, meaning Trump cannot refile the same claims. The ruling affirmed the newspaper's reporting as protected by the First Amendment and praised the Journal's "thoughtful and detailed investigation." The letter at the center of the dispute was later produced by Epstein's estate in response to a congressional subpoena, matching the Journal's original description.
Chanakya's Move
This is Gayles's decisive closing move in a case Trump initiated but had no path to win. Trump filed in July 2025 as his administration faced criticism over withholding Epstein documents—a reputational crisis he tried to solve through litigation rather than disclosure. His real gamble was settlement leverage: CBS and ABC had paid earlier ($16 million and undisclosed amounts). But Murdoch and Dow Jones did not fold. Gayles's language—'grasping at straws,' 'manufacture' flaws—was deliberately harsh, designed to signal that the case was baseless from the start and to discourage similar suits. By dismissing with prejudice, he also shut the door on Trump's team refiling with cosmetic changes. Trump's counter-move now is rhetorical: denouncing the courts and media as aligned against him, which shores up his political base but does not reverse the legal loss.