Judge Dismisses Trump's $10 Billion Wall Street Journal Suit With Prejudice

A federal judge dismissed President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch on October 31, ruling that the amended complaint did not adequately allege that the newspaper knowingly published false information or recklessly disregarded the truth.

U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami dismissed the case with prejudice after giving Trump an earlier opportunity to revise it. The decision ends that complaint in the trial court, rather than permitting another amendment; appellate review remains a separate possibility.

The lawsuit challenged a Journal story about a sexually suggestive letter and drawing bearing Trump’s name in a birthday album prepared for Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. Trump denied writing the letter and called the story false, malicious and defamatory.

Gayles said the revised lawsuit was “grasping at straws” and attempted to manufacture shortcomings in the Journal’s reporting. The White House did not immediately respond publicly to the ruling or to AP’s request for comment.

Dispute Centered on a Birthday Album

The Journal reported that the letter appeared in an album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday, with contributions collected by Ghislaine Maxwell. The article described text framed by a drawing of a naked woman and a birthday message ending with a reference to a “wonderful secret.”

Trump’s lawsuit accused the newspaper and its reporters of knowingly and recklessly publishing false statements that caused financial and reputational harm. He denied authorship, a denial the Journal included in the original article.

The case arose from reporting on Trump’s past association with Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. The disputed album predated Epstein’s first arrest in 2006.

Why the Judge Rejected the Amendment

Gayles had dismissed the original complaint in April but allowed Trump to try again. Trump filed the amended version in May.

In the October ruling, the judge said allegations concerning malice were vague, conclusory and sometimes inconsistent with the article being challenged. He also found some allegations irrelevant to whether the defendants knew the statements were false or recklessly disregarded that possibility.

The judge specifically noted that the Journal had not concealed Trump’s response. It told readers that he considered the letter a fake and denied writing it.

That mattered to the complaint’s attempt to show the publication had ignored information undermining its reporting. Gayles concluded that the amendment still fell short of pleading actual malice.

High Threshold for Public-Figure Claims

The ruling cited the Supreme Court’s 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. The actual-malice standard concerns knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for truth, rather than hostility toward the person being covered.

A report being disputed or damaging is therefore not enough by itself to meet the requirement. In this case, the court found Trump’s amended allegations insufficient to sustain the claim.

The decision addresses the legal adequacy of the lawsuit, not an independent authentication of the contested letter. Its immediate consequence is that Trump cannot simply revise and refile the same complaint in the trial court after this second dismissal.

References: ‘Grasping at straws’: Judge dismisses Trump suit against Wall Street Journal over Epstein letter