Christine Drews Sieger
A federal judge has permanently dismissed Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal.
A federal court in Miami has dismissed Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, concluding a high-stakes legal battle over reporting linked to the late Jeffrey Epstein.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the complaint with prejudice, barring the president from refiling the same claims in district court.
In a blunt ruling, Gayles wrote that Trump’s legal team was “grasping at straws” in an attempt to fabricate flaws in the newsroom’s reporting.
The dispute stems from an article published last year detailing a 2003 birthday album assembled by Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
According to the Journal, the commemorative book included a sexually suggestive note bearing Trump’s name, framed by a hand-drawn illustration of a nude woman.
Trump contested authorship from the outset, calling the document a fabricated smear and suing both the publication and Murdoch for defamation, according to the Norway’s newspaper Bergens Tidende.
The High Bar of Actual Malice
Gayles anchored the dismissal in the landmark 1964 Supreme Court precedent New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.
Under U.S. constitutional law, public officials pursuing libel actions must prove “actual malice”—that a publisher knowingly circulated false information or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
The court concluded Trump failed to show any such recklessness. Instead of ignoring Trump’s position, Gayles noted, the Journal actively presented his rebuttal within the report.
“On the contrary, the newspaper informed readers that President Trump called the letter a forgery and denied having written it,” Gayles stated, emphasizing that transparently reporting the subject’s denial contradicted claims of bad faith.
Epstein was first arrested on federal charges in 2006 and died by suicide in a Manhattan detention center in August 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking, according to Bergens Tidende.
Trump’s Legal Team Signals an Appeal
Despite the dismissal, the legal fight may continue. According to CBS News, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team stated that the president intends to persist with the lawsuit, and a source familiar with the strategy indicated that an appeal is likely.
While the ruling with prejudice blocks Trump from reviving the complaint in the lower court, an appeal would allow his attorneys to challenge Judge Gayles’ application of First Amendment standards before a higher court.
The White House declined to comment on the decision.
