A federal judge dismissed President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones and Rupert Murdoch, ruling that his lawyers failed to show the newspaper acted with “actual malice” in reporting on a letter bearing his name in Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the case “with prejudice,” barring Trump from refiling the same claims. In a 20-page ruling, Gayles described the lawsuit as “grasping at straws” and attempting to “manufacture flaws” in what he called the newspaper’s “thoughtful and detailed investigation.”
The dispute centered on a Journal report about a letter included in a 2003 birthday book for Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender. The letter bore Trump’s name and signature and contained suggestive language framed by a drawing of a woman’s body. Trump has denied writing or signing it and called it fake.
Gayles previously dismissed a version of the lawsuit seeking $20 billion in damages. Trump’s lawyers refiled seeking $10 billion, but the judge concluded that their arguments again failed to meet the standard for defamation claims involving public figures. That standard requires showing that a defendant knew a statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for its truth.
Trump’s lawyers argued that his denial should have led the Journal to have “disregarded everything else they learned in their investigation and not published the story.” Gayles rejected that argument, saying a public figure’s denial does not establish that a newspaper knowingly or recklessly published false information.
“But that is not what the actual malice standard requires and runs afoul of the First Amendment,” the judge wrote. Accepting that argument, he added, would mean “any time a public figure or his team denies an accusation, journalists would be immediately blocked from publishing negative or contradictory press—a result that flies in the face of the ‘American privilege to speak one’s mind’.”
The Journal published its story as the Trump administration faced bipartisan criticism over its handling of Epstein-related documents. Trump accused the newspaper of slandering him and violating libel laws by reporting on the letter.
According to the Journal, the letter featured typewritten text inside the outline of a naked woman, apparently drawn with a heavy marker. It included the phrase “enigmas never age” and ended: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
[READ MORE: ‘The View’ Host Tells Dems To Cool It]
