A federal judge in Miami on Saturday dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled, the amended defamation lawsuit that President Donald Trump filed against Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal. The case concerned an article about an alleged birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles found that Trump failed to show that the defendants published defamatory content with so-called actual malice. In his reasoning, he also wrote that the lawsuit tried to “create” errors in the newspaper’s journalistic investigation. Gayles further found that several other allegations in the complaint were without merit.
Dismissal “with prejudice” means Trump cannot bring the same claims against Murdoch and the newspaper again in federal court. The judge did not rule on whether Trump wrote the disputed letter.
The case concerned an article from July 2025. In it, the newspaper described a suggestive letter that, according to the paper, bore Trump’s name and was included in an album prepared in 2003 for Epstein’s 50th birthday. Trump has denied writing the letter. The judge noted that the article neither omitted nor downplayed the president’s denial, because readers were informed that he considered the letter a forgery.
Gayles had already dismissed the lawsuit in April, finding that the president’s attorneys had not met the legal requirements. Trump’s team then refiled the case. The updated complaint accused the newspaper of a lack of diligence, because it did not show how its journalists obtained and verified the letter. The lawsuit sought $10 billion.
The president’s team says it will keep fighting. A Trump spokesperson said he would continue to pursue the case against the Wall Street Journal and the other defendants. Available information does not indicate whether Trump’s side has already filed an appeal.
Source: Local 10, WLRN
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