4/13/26
A federal judge on Monday dismissed President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its publisher, Rupert Murdoch, over an article examining Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, while allowing the president an opportunity to amend his complaint. U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles, nominated to his post by former Democratic President Barack Obama, writing in an order issued in Florida, said Trump had failed to plausibly argue that the newspaper published the article with actual malice, a required standard for defamation claims brought by public figures. Gayles said Trump may file an amended complaint addressing the deficiencies. Trump filed the lawsuit in July after the newspaper published a story describing a sexually suggestive letter that the Journal said bore Trump’s signature and appeared in a 2003 birthday album prepared for Epstein. The article renewed attention on Trump’s well-documented association with the late financier.
Attorneys for Dow Jones, which publishes the Journal, and Murdoch had urged Gayles to rule that the article was true and therefore not defamatory. The judge declined to do so, writing that questions about whether Trump wrote the letter or was Epstein’s friend are factual disputes that cannot be resolved at the current stage of the case. The ruling adds to ongoing challenges facing the Trump administration amid fallout from the release of Epstein-related files. Neither the White House nor Dow Jones have commented on the ruling.
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