A federal judge in Miami on Saturday dismissed President Donald Trump‘s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, permanently ending a case that grew out of the newspaper’s reporting on the president’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the suit with prejudice, ruling that the president did not prove the defendants made defamatory statements with actual malice, as the law requires for public figures. When a case is dismissed with prejudice, it cannot be refiled, making the dismissal final.
Describing the president’s arguments as “grasping at straws,” the judge said the lawsuit had attempted to “manufacture” flaws in the Journal’s investigative reporting, according to the Associated Press, which first reported the ruling on Saturday.
What the Trump WSJ lawsuit was about
The lawsuit concerned a Wall Street Journal story published last year describing a sexually suggestive letter and drawing that the paper said bore Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday. The letter was reportedly collected by Ghislaine Maxwell as part of a birthday album for Epstein, years before he was first arrested in 2006.
According to the newspaper’s reporting, the letter contained text framed by the outline of what appeared to be a hand-drawn naked woman and ended with the words: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump denied writing the letter and described the report as false, malicious, and defamatory.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, accused the paper and its reporters of having knowingly and recklessly printed numerous false, defamatory, and disparaging statements, and sought $10 billion in damages.
Why the judge dismissed the defamation lawsuit
In Saturday’s ruling, Judge Gayles cited the Supreme Court’s landmark 1964 ruling in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which established a high burden of proof for public figures bringing defamation claims. Under that standard, a public figure must show that a publication knowingly made false statements or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
“The Amended Complaint falls short of pleading actual malice,” Gayles wrote, according to reports of the ruling. The judge rejected the argument that the newspaper should have withheld its report following Trump’s denial. “Rather, it informed readers that President Trump decried the Letter as a fake and denied writing it,” the judge wrote.
This was the second time Gayles has dismissed Trump’s lawsuit this year. The judge first threw out the case in April, ruling that Trump had failed to sufficiently argue that the article was published with actual malice, but allowed the president to file an amended complaint, which was submitted in May. That revised lawsuit has now also been dismissed, and the “with prejudice” ruling means Trump cannot file an amended version of the suit again.
What happens next
A spokesman for the president said he would appeal the ruling, and would continue to hold accountable those who mislead the American people with what he called fake news and smears, according to briefing coverage of the decision. An appeal would take the case to a higher court, but the dismissal with prejudice sets a high bar for any further challenge to succeed.
Trump remains in litigation with the BBC over separate reporting, according to briefing coverage, so the dismissal does not end all of the president’s legal disputes with news organizations.
The wider context
The ruling arrives three days before the November 3 midterm elections, in which control of Congress is at stake, and it closes one of the most closely watched media lawsuits of the year. The case tested the limits of defamation law for public figures in an era when the Sullivan standard, in place for more than six decades, continues to shape how courts handle claims against news organizations.
Legal experts have long noted that the actual malice standard is deliberately difficult to meet, precisely because it is designed to protect reporting on matters of public concern. Saturday’s ruling is a fresh illustration of that principle: a president’s denial, on its own, was not enough to turn a disputed news report into a viable defamation claim.
For the Journal, the dismissal removes a $10 billion threat that had hung over its Epstein reporting since the suit was filed. For the White House, the appeal signaled by the president’s spokesman means the dispute may still continue in a higher court, even though the case itself can no longer be refiled in its current form.
Sources: Associated Press reporting on the November 1, 2026 ruling, court documents as reported, and the Wall Street Journal’s original reporting on the Epstein birthday album.