Reported by Al Jazeera
Judge permanently drops Trump’s $10bn WSJ lawsuit, ruling the president failed to prove actual malice in the newspaper’s reporting.
A federal judge has permanently dismissed United States President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit against media mogul Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal.
On Saturday, US District Judge Darrin Gayles concluded that the president had failed to establish the standard of “actual malice” required for defamation suits.
More from the original report
Under US law, a successful complaint must show that the defendant released a defamatory statement knowing it was false or with “reckless disregard” for its accuracy.
Gayles, however, said that Trump was “grasping at straws” with his $10bn case against The Wall Street Journal.
“The Amended Complaint falls short of pleading actual malice,” Gayles wrote.
“Indeed, the allegations regarding malice are conclusory, vague, sometimes inconsistent with the Article and often irrelevant to whether Defendants knew or should have known that the statements in the Article were purportedly false.”
The judge went so far as to suggest that Trump’s legal team had attempted “to manufacture flaws with the investigation” published in The Wall Street Journal.
The case stemmed from coverage that linked Trump to the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
On July 17, 2025, The Wall Street Journal published an exclusive describing a sexually suggestive birthday note gifted to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003, as part of a book of congratulatory letters.
The letters were reportedly collected by disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell , who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her involvement in Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme.
The note attributed to Trump includes typed text framed by a hand-drawn outline of what appears to be a curvaceous woman. At the bottom, where her pelvic region might be, is Trump’s signature.
Trump vehemently denied responsibility for the text, the signature and the artwork. A copy of the birthday letter was later released through the House Oversight Committee.
The Wall Street Journal’s article came at a time when Trump’s second administration was facing intense scrutiny over whether it had withheld documents about Epstein’s alleged sex crimes, despite promises of…