The judge found the president did not clear that bar, and the with-prejudice dismissal closes the door on a refiled complaint.
A federal judge in Miami on Saturday dismissed President Donald Trump's multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, ruling that the president had failed to show the defendants published defamatory statements with actual malice. According to the report, US District Judge Darrin Gayles threw the case out with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled and the dismissal is permanent.
The suit concerned a Journal story published last year describing a sexually suggestive letter that the paper said bore Trump's name and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday. According to the newspaper, the letter was collected by Ghislaine Maxwell and includes text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman, ending with the line, "Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret". Trump denied writing it and called the story "false, malicious, and defamatory".
In his ruling, Gayles described the lawsuit as "grasping at straws" in its attempt to "manufacture" flaws in the Journal's investigative reporting. That language matters. Defamation cases brought by public figures turn on the actual-malice standard, which requires proof that a publisher knew a claim was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. The judge found the president did not clear that bar, and the with-prejudice dismissal closes the door on a refiled complaint.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, had accused the paper and its reporters of having "knowingly and recklessly" published "numerous false, defamatory and disparaging statements", which it alleged caused "overwhelming financial and reputational harm" to the president. The ruling rejects that characterisation without reaching the underlying dispute over the letter's authenticity, which the report does not resolve.
The decision is a notable legal setback for a sitting president pursuing a major media organisation over reporting on his past associations. It also reinforces the protection American law gives to investigative journalism on public figures, even where the subject disputes the facts. What is not yet known is whether the president will appeal, whether any related litigation is pending, and how the Journal's parent company has responded. The report gives no indication of either.
For observers of the Epstein affair, the ruling settles a procedural question rather than the substantive one. The letter's authorship, and the circumstances of the birthday album, remain contested in the public record. What Saturday's judgment establishes is narrower but firm: on the evidence presented, the president did not meet the legal threshold to punish the paper for publishing.
