President Donald Trump reads the Wall Street Journal as he returns to his Mar-a-Lago club from Trump National Golf Club, Saturday, April 5, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A federal judge kicked off the week by throwing out Donald Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its reporters for failing to show that Rupert Murdoch's newspaper made up a story about the president signing a "bawdy" Jeffrey Epstein birthday letter two decades ago.
The silver lining for Trump is that U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles, a Barack Obama appointee, dismissed the case without prejudice on Monday, giving him two weeks to refile the lawsuit. It meant the judge did not rule on the Journal's demands for Trump to pay attorneys fees and costs for bringing a SLAPP suit — a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation — "without merit." Gayles kicked that analysis well down the road, in the event that an amended Trump suit can come up with enough evidence to keep the case alive.
The dismissal comes days after first lady Melania Trump shocked many by breaking her silence in a public statement at the White House, in which she denied ever being friends with Epstein or his incarcerated sex-trafficking accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
In the judge's view, Trump came "nowhere close" in his complaint to meeting the "actual malice" standard for public figures alleging defamation. Gayles noted that Trump had alleged the Journal had "serious doubts about the truth of their reporting" and ran the article anyway — "deliberately" avoiding an investigation that would have shown the Epstein birthday letter was "fake" or "nonexistent."
One reason Trump "falls short of pleading actual malice," the judge indicated, was his failure to closely read the article he so quickly sued over in July.
Indeed, the article addressed attempts to investigate, Gayles noted.
"The Complaint also alleges that President Trump told Defendants that the Letter was a fake before they ran the Article. President Trump argues that this allegation shows that Defendants acted with serious doubts about the truth of their reporting and, therefore, with actual malice. The Court disagrees. To establish actual malice, 'a plaintiff must show the defendant deliberately avoided investigating the veracity of the statement in order to evade learning the truth.' The Complaint comes nowhere close to this standard. Quite the opposite. The Article explains that, before running the story, Defendants contacted President Trump, Justice Department officials, and the FBI for comment," the judge said. "President Trump responded with his denial, the Justice Department did not respond at all, and the FBI declined to comment. In short, the Complaint and Article confirm that Defendants attempted to investigate. The Article also states that the WSJ reviewed the Letter. Accordingly, President Trump's conclusory allegation that Defendants had contradictory evidence and failed to investigate is rebutted by the Article and is insufficient to establish actual malice."
In a footnote, Gayles added that Trump had not "alleged any facts, beyond conclusory allegations, that support an inference that Defendants purposefully avoided the truth."
In July, the newspaper reported that the "bawdy" letter included a drawing of a "sketch" of a naked woman's body with "Donald" signed "below her waist" seemingly "mimicking pubic hair." The letter also contained a "typewritten note styled as an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein, written in the third person," which included the line: "Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret."
Trump threatened to sue the WSJ prior to the article's publication, then immediately sued the next day in federal court, claiming that "no authentic letter or drawing exist[ed]." After Congress released Epstein estate documents in September, including the Epstein birthday book, the White House shifted to say Trump did not sign the letter or draw it.
Defending the article as "true," the Journal answered that its report made no claim that Trump wrote the letter but merely stated a letter existed which "bore President Trump's name and signature" and that the letter was included among many other submissions for Epstein's 50th birthday book. In addition, the newspaper said, the report noted the president denied he authored the letter.
As of Monday, Gayles has not decided if the letter the Journal reported on and the one subsequently handed to Congress are the same.
"President Trump disputes their authenticity. The Court cannot make a factual finding, at this time, that the documents produced by the Epstein Estate are the same documents referenced in the Article. Moreover, President Trump disputes that he wrote or signed the Produced Letter. Based on these factual disputes, the Court denies Defendants' request to incorporate by reference the Birthday Book and Produced Letter," he said.