A US judge has dismissed US President Donald Trump’s US$10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its report on an alleged birthday letter he sent to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Judge Darrin Gayles ruled that Trump’s case was “grasping at straws”, finding that his legal arguments failed to establish the grounds required for a defamation claim.
Trump had filed the lawsuit last year against the newspaper’s parent company, Dow Jones, and its leader, Rupert Murdoch, after the Journal published a report about a letter allegedly written by Trump for Epstein’s 50th birthday book in 2003, before Epstein was charged with sex crimes.
Trump has denied writing or signing the letter, which reportedly featured suggestive wording alongside a drawing outlining a woman’s body. He accused the newspaper of slandering him and violating libel laws by publishing the report.
The lawsuit had previously sought US$20 billion in damages before Gayles dismissed it. Trump’s legal team subsequently refiled the case, seeking US$10 billion, but the judge has now dismissed it “with prejudice”, meaning it cannot be brought again.
In his 20-page ruling, Gayles said the lawsuit ran counter to the First Amendment, which protects freedom of the press. He also praised the newspaper’s “thoughtful and detailed investigation” behind the report, saying Trump’s legal team had attempted to “manufacture flaws” in its work.
The judge found that Trump’s lawyers had failed to demonstrate that the defendants published defamatory statements with “actual malice”, a legal standard that requires proof that a defendant knew a statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for whether it was true.
Trump’s legal team had argued that the Journal should not have published the report after Trump denied writing the letter when approached by the newspaper.
However, Gayles rejected that argument, saying the actual malice standard did not require journalists to abandon their findings simply because a public figure disputed an allegation.
“But that is not what the actual malice standard requires and runs afoul of the First Amendment,” he wrote.
He added that accepting Trump’s argument would mean journalists could be prevented from publishing critical or contradictory reports whenever a public figure or their representatives denied an accusation.
According to the Journal’s report on Epstein’s 50th birthday book, the letter bearing Trump’s name contained several lines of typewritten text surrounded by the outline of a naked woman, apparently drawn by hand with a thick marker.
The message reportedly included the phrase “enigmas never age” and ended with the words: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret”.
The lawsuit came amid intense bipartisan criticism of the Trump administration over its handling of Epstein-related documents during the summer.
