A Florida federal court has thrown out President Donald Trump’s massive $10 billion defamation case against the Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch over the newspaper’s coverage of his connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
In his Monday ruling, U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles determined that Trump’s legal team had not successfully demonstrated that the publication acted with malicious intent when reporting the story. However, the judge has allowed Trump the opportunity to submit a revised complaint.
The legal action was initiated by Trump in July, stemming from a Wall Street Journal piece that highlighted his documented association with Epstein. The article featured details about a provocative letter allegedly bearing Trump’s signature that was part of a commemorative album created for Epstein’s 50th birthday celebration in 2003.
Congressional investigators later made the letter public after obtaining it through a subpoena of Epstein’s estate records. Trump has firmly rejected claims he authored the correspondence, describing the newspaper’s reporting as “false, malicious, and defamatory.”
Legal representatives for the publication and Murdoch had requested that Judge Gayles declare the article’s claims factually accurate, which would eliminate any basis for defamation. The judge declined this approach, stating that “whether President Trump was the author of the Letter or Epstein’s friend are questions of fact that cannot be determined at this stage of the litigation.”
This court decision represents another setback for the Trump administration as it continues dealing with consequences from the public release of Epstein-related documents and the president’s pattern of pursuing legal action against news organizations whose coverage he considers unfavorable.
Representatives from both the White House and Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal’s parent company, have not yet provided responses to requests for comment on the ruling.
