Judge Permanently Tosses Trump’s $10 Billion Suit Against The Wall Street Journal Over Epstein Letter

MIAMI, Oct. 31 (TodayViralUSA) — A federal judge on Saturday threw out President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch for good, ruling that the president again failed to show the newspaper acted with “actual malice” in reporting on a birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein that bore his name.

U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice, meaning Trump cannot refile the same claims in federal court. Trump’s legal team has said it plans to appeal.

‘Grasping at straws’

“As with his first attempt, he has failed,” Gayles wrote in a 20-page ruling. “Grasping at straws, the Amended Complaint attempts to manufacture flaws with the investigation.” He described the allegations about malice as “conclusory, vague, sometimes inconsistent with the Article, and often irrelevant.”

The judge said the Journal had carried out a “thoughtful and detailed investigation” and rejected the argument that the paper should have held the story once Trump denied writing the letter. He noted the article told readers that Trump called the letter a fake. The ruling does not decide whether Trump wrote it.

The high bar for public figures

Gayles relied on the Supreme Court’s 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which requires public figures suing for libel to prove a publisher knew a statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. He first dismissed the case in April but allowed Trump to try again; the revised complaint was filed in May.

The story at issue

The Journal reported in July 2025 that a sexually suggestive letter bearing Trump’s name, framed by a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman, was included in an album assembled by Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. Trump, who was friendly with Epstein at the time, has denied writing it and called the story “false, malicious, and defamatory.”