Dismissed lawsuit follows Wall Street Journal’s report on a letter allegedly signed by Trump for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
Published On 13 Apr 2026
A United States federal judge has dismissed US President Donald Trump’s $10bn defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its owner Rupert Murdoch over a story on Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Miami-based US District Judge Darrin Gayles said on Monday that Trump did not meet the “actual malice” standard that public figures must clear in defamation cases.
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That means public figures must prove not only that a public statement about them was false, but also that the media outlet or person who made the statement acted with reckless disregard for the truth or should have known that it was false.
“This complaint comes nowhere close to this standard,” Gayles wrote. “Quite the opposite.”
The judge noted that reporters from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reached out to Trump for comment beforehand and printed his denial. That allowed readers to decide for themselves what to conclude, cutting against Trump’s assertion that the newspaper acted with actual malice, the judge said.
Gayles said Trump could file an amended version of the lawsuit by April 27.
In his lawsuit, Trump called a birthday greeting that he allegedly sent to Epstein, a convicted sex offender, a “fake”. The US president sought $10bn for what he called damage to his reputation. News Corp’s Dow Jones & Company, the WSJ’s parent company, defended the accuracy of its July 17, 2025 article.
Trump filed the lawsuit after promising to sue the paper almost immediately after it put a new spotlight on his well-documented relationship with Epstein by publishing an article that described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper said bore Trump’s signature and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
The letter was subsequently released publicly by the US Congress, which subpoenaed the records from Epstein’s estate.
The ruling marks yet another blow in the Trump administration’s efforts to manage fallout over its release of the Epstein files and the president’s attempts to use the legal system to curb reporting that he finds critical of him.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request by AP for comment.
