The judge threw out Donald Trump's lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over a story on the US president's ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
https://p.dw.com/p/5C7BpCritics say Donald Trump is using the threat of defamation to discourage dissenting voices in the mediaImage: Salwan Georges/UPI Photo/IMAGOAdvertisementA federal judge has tossed out US President Donald Trump's $10 billion (€8.5 billion) defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its owners, which include Rupert Murdoch.
In his ruling, Judge Darrin P. Gayles said Trump hadn't come close to meeting the "actual malice" threshold that public figures must clear in defamation cases.
This means that someone has to prove that a public statement about them was false but also that the media outlet or person who made the statement knew or should have known that it was false.
"This complaint comes nowhere close to this standard," Gayles wrote in his ruling released on Monday local time. "Quite the opposite."
Trump filed the lawsuit against the WSJ, owned by Murdoch's company News Corp, in July 2025. He asked for at least $10 billion, claiming the paper tarnished his reputation by publishing an article describing a birthday book complied for deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The article said that a card containing sexually suggestive text and featuring a sketch of a female figure drawn with a marker bore Trump's signature.
Trump and his lawyers have long insisted that the birthday card is fake.
In his ruling, Judge Gayles wrote that the WSJ's reporters reached out to Trump for comment beforehand and printed his denial. That allowed readers to decide for themselves what to conclude, cutting against Trump's claim that the newspaper acted with actual malice, the judge said.
Monday's ruling did not address whether the article was true.
After the ruling, Trump said he would refile an "updated lawsuit" by April 27, the date given by the judge to file an amended version.
Trump's ties to the Epstein were back in the headlines last week after Melania Trump gave a press conference denying connections to Epstein, who was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges of underage girls at the time of his death.
Trump has filed several defamation cases during his presidency against major media outlets over reporting he has characterized as unfair or false.
Press freedom advocates are concerned that Trump is seeking to use defamation cases to supress critical coverage.
Most recently, Trump took legal action against the BBC. He filed a lawsuit in November 2025 seeking damages for what Trump says is a misleading editing of a speech.
Trump has also sued the New York Times over articles and a book about him and a newspaper in Iowa over a poll that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential campaign.
