Judge Dismisses Trump's $10 Billion Wall Street Journal Lawsuit With Prejudice

President Donald Trump's lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal's publisher is over. U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles, based in Miami, on Saturday dismissed the case for a second time, finding the president had not established a viable claim that he was defamed by an article about a birthday letter sent to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, The Wall Street Journal reported. Saying the president was "grasping at straws," the judge threw the case out, the Associated Press reported in its Saturday scan.

The dismissal this time is with prejudice, which means the president cannot file the suit again. Gayles had dismissed an earlier version in April but allowed Trump to refile. In Saturday's ruling, the judge wrote that Trump's allegations "are conclusory, vague, sometimes inconsistent with the article, and often irrelevant" to his argument that the Journal published its 2025 report with actual malice — the standard a public figure must meet to prove defamation. "The Court agrees that President Trump's defamation claims lack merit," Gayles wrote.

Trump had sued Journal publisher Dow Jones, its parent company News Corp, News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson, Chairman Emeritus Rupert Murdoch and two Journal reporters, bringing two defamation claims and asking for at least $10 billion in damages in each. The case grew out of the Journal's report last year that a book given to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003 included a letter with typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, in an article headlined "Jeffrey Epstein's Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump."