A federal judge on Saturday once again threw out President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its reporting that linked the president and the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The president had argued that The Journal had maligned his “character and integrity” when it published an article in 2025 about a lewd birthday greeting that Mr. Trump appeared to have written to Mr. Epstein more than 20 years earlier. Mr. Trump denied writing the greeting and sued The Journal, asking for $10 billion in damages.
On Saturday, Judge Darrin P. Gayles of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted The Journal’s request that the complaint be dismissed, writing that the president “has failed” to prove that The Journal had “acted with actual malice.”
Actual malice is a legal standard that must be met by public figures in defamation proceedings. It means the defendants knew what they were publishing was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
“In effect, President Trump argues that once he declared the Letter a ‘fake,’ Defendants should have disregarded everything else they learned in their investigation and not published the story,” Judge Gayles wrote in a 20-page decision. “But that is not what the actual malice standard requires and runs afoul of the First Amendment.”
Judge Gayles dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning the claim cannot be refiled again.
“President Trump will continue to press forward in his powerhouse lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and all of the other defendants,” a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s legal team said in a statement. “The president will continue to hold those who mislead the American People with Fake News and smears accountable for their actions.”
Representatives for The Journal did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The dismissal was the second time Mr. Trump’s lawsuit related to the Journal’s reporting about Mr. Epstein has been thrown out. The same judge dismissed an earlier defamation lawsuit from Mr. Trump in April, also because he had failed to adequately show that The Journal had acted with actual malice. Mr. Trump refiled his complaint in May.
Mr. Trump originally filed the defamation lawsuit against The Journal the day after the newspaper published an article on July 17, 2025, headlined: “Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump.” The article described a letter that appeared to be from Mr. Trump that was included in a 2003 birthday album for Mr. Epstein and contained the words: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
The letter had a drawing of a naked woman on it with Mr. Trump’s signature below the waist, mimicking pubic hair, according to the article. The Journal also included Mr. Trump’s denial that he had written the letter or created the drawing: “This is not me. This is a fake thing,” the article quoted Mr. Trump as saying.
After the article was published, a copy of the birthday book was released to House Oversight Committee members by lawyers for Mr. Epstein’s estate. It included a letter and drawing that resembled the one described by The Journal. The 238-page book was compiled by Mr. Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who has been convicted of aiding his campaign of sexual abuse.
The suit also named as defendants The Journal’s parent company, News Corp; its founder, Rupert Murdoch; its chief executive, Robert Thomson; its publisher, Dow Jones; and two Journal reporters.
The president, who has a long history of vitriol against the media, has filed a number of lawsuits against news outlets in recent years, including against The New York Times, the BBC, CNN and The Des Moines Register.
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