Judge Dismisses Trump's $10bn WSJ Lawsuit for Good
A Miami federal judge ended Trump's defamation case over a Wall Street Journal report on an Epstein birthday note. The dismissal is with prejudice.
A federal judge in Miami has thrown out Donald Trump's $10bn defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, and the president cannot bring it back.
Why the case failed
US District Judge Darrin Gayles ruled on Saturday that Trump had not met the "actual malice" standard. Under US law, a defamation plaintiff must show that the defendant published a false statement knowing it was false, or with "reckless disregard" for its accuracy.
Gayles said the allegations about malice were "conclusory, vague, sometimes inconsistent with the Article and often irrelevant". He wrote that Trump was "grasping at straws". He also suggested that Trump's lawyers had tried to invent flaws in the newspaper's investigation.
The article behind the suit
On July 17, 2025, the Journal reported on a birthday note given to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. It was part of a book of letters, reportedly collected by Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for her role in Epstein's sex-trafficking scheme.
The note attributed to Trump has typed text inside a hand-drawn outline of what appears to be a woman, with his signature at the bottom. Trump strongly denied writing the text, signing it or drawing the artwork. A copy of the letter was later released through the House Oversight Committee.
Trump filed his suit in Miami on July 18, 2025. It named two journalists linked to the article as defendants.
Second try, same result
Gayles first dismissed the case in April, again for failing to show actual malice. That ruling let Trump refile, and he did so in May. The new complaint argued that the Journal was reckless because it did not show how its reporters received and checked the letter.
This time the judge dismissed the case "with prejudice". That bars any future litigation over the matter.
Trump still has other defamation cases against media outlets, among them the BBC and The New York Times.
Our View
The "with prejudice" wording makes this a final loss at the trial-court level. Whether Trump appeals is not stated in the reporting. The cases against the BBC and The New York Times may be worth watching, since the same actual-malice test could come up there.
Source: Al Jazeera