A federal judge dismissed President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit with prejudice on October 31, 2026, finding that his amended complaint failed to establish actual malice. Trump’s legal team plans to appeal.
A federal judge in Miami dismissed President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal on Saturday, October 31, 2026, ruling that the president failed to establish that the newspaper acted with actual malice when reporting on an alleged birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein.
U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, preventing Trump from amending or refiling the same claims in the district court. The decision followed an earlier dismissal in April that gave the president an opportunity to revise his allegations.
The lawsuit challenged a July 2025 article reporting that a sexually suggestive letter bearing Trump’s name appeared in a birthday album presented to Epstein in 2003. Trump has repeatedly denied writing or signing the letter and maintains that the newspaper’s reporting was false.
Judge Finds Trump’s Allegations Insufficient
In his 20-page ruling, Gayles determined that Trump’s amended complaint did not adequately demonstrate that the defendants knowingly published false information or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
The judge described the president’s legal arguments as vague and insufficiently supported. He also found that some allegations conflicted with the article itself or had little relevance to whether the journalists believed their reporting was false.
Gayles criticized the complaint for attempting to identify flaws in the newspaper’s reporting without adequately connecting those alleged problems to the legal requirements for defamation.
The judge emphasized that Trump had already received an opportunity to revise the lawsuit. Because the amended complaint still failed to satisfy the required legal standard, Gayles determined that another amendment was not warranted.
Dismissal with prejudice means the same claims cannot simply be brought again in the district court. However, it does not prevent Trump from appealing the decision to a higher court.
Trump’s legal representatives indicated after the ruling that they intended to continue challenging the decision.
The Epstein Birthday Letter at the Center of the Case
The dispute began with a Wall Street Journal article published on July 17, 2025. The newspaper reported that a letter attributed to Trump appeared in a collection of birthday messages assembled for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003.
The album was reportedly compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate, who later received a federal prison sentence for helping him sexually abuse underage girls.
According to the newspaper, the letter contained typewritten text arranged within the outline of a naked woman. It ended with a birthday greeting and a reference to a shared secret.
Trump denied creating the letter and called the report false. His legal team argued that the newspaper had published damaging allegations despite reasons to question the document’s authenticity.
The case attracted considerable attention because Trump and Epstein had previously socialized together. Their relationship deteriorated during the mid-2000s, before Epstein’s later federal criminal proceedings.
Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to prostitution-related offenses, including soliciting a minor. He died by suicide in federal custody in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
The existence of a document bearing Trump’s name does not independently establish that he wrote, drew or signed it. The court’s dismissal also did not constitute a factual finding that Trump created the letter.
Lawsuit Originally Filed in July 2025
Trump filed the lawsuit shortly after the newspaper published its report. The defendants included Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, its parent company News Corp, media executive Rupert Murdoch and other individuals associated with the report.
The complaint also named News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson and the two journalists who wrote the article, Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo.
Trump accused the defendants of publishing false and defamatory statements that damaged his personal and professional reputation. The litigation sought billions of dollars in damages.
His original complaint alleged that the newspaper and its reporters either knew the information was false or deliberately ignored evidence undermining the story.
The defendants challenged those allegations and asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit. They maintained that the reporting was accurate and protected under established defamation law.
Gayles initially dismissed the complaint on April 13, 2026, because it failed to sufficiently allege actual malice. However, he allowed Trump’s lawyers to submit an amended version.
The president’s legal team subsequently revised its arguments and continued pursuing the case. Saturday’s ruling determined that those changes did not resolve the deficiencies identified by the court.
Actual Malice Standard Central to Decision
The legal dispute centered on the constitutional standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.
That ruling requires public officials pursuing certain defamation claims to establish that a publisher made a false statement with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard for whether it was true.
In this legal context, actual malice does not simply mean personal hostility, political disagreement or an intention to embarrass someone. It concerns the defendant’s knowledge or serious doubts about the truth of the published information.
The distinction places a substantial burden on public officials who bring defamation lawsuits over reporting about their public conduct. The protections are intended to preserve vigorous discussion of government and public affairs.
At the dismissal stage, however, a plaintiff is not required to prove the entire case through trial evidence. The complaint must contain enough plausible factual allegations to support the legal elements of the claim.
Gayles found that Trump’s amended complaint did not meet that threshold. The decision therefore ended the case before a trial or a final determination of the letter’s authenticity.
Newspaper Included Trump’s Denial
One important issue involved the newspaper’s handling of Trump’s response before publication. Gayles noted that the article informed readers that the president rejected the letter and denied writing it.
The court considered that disclosure relevant when evaluating allegations that journalists intentionally disregarded information contradicting their report.
Trump’s lawyers also pointed to statements involving Maxwell, who was associated with the compilation of Epstein’s birthday album. Her inability to recall the specific letter was not enough to establish that the newspaper knowingly published false information.
The judge distinguished between uncertainty about a document’s history and evidence that a journalist actually knew a published claim was false.
The ruling did not require the court to establish whether every detail of the newspaper’s reporting was accurate. Instead, it focused on whether Trump’s allegations supported a viable defamation claim under the governing legal standard.
Dow Jones welcomed the dismissal and said it continued to stand behind the reliability and accuracy of the newspaper’s work.
Trump’s Legal Team Plans to Continue Fight
Following the decision, Trump’s legal representatives maintained that the president intended to pursue the dispute. CBS News reported that a person familiar with his legal strategy expected an appeal.
An appeal would allow a higher court to review whether Gayles correctly applied the law when dismissing the amended complaint. It would not automatically reopen the case or establish that the challenged reporting was false.
The litigation has drawn attention to the relationship between public officials and news organizations during Trump’s second presidential term. The president has pursued several legal challenges against media companies over reporting he disputes.
Those cases involve different factual circumstances and legal questions. Saturday’s decision applies specifically to the allegations raised against The Wall Street Journal and the other defendants in the Epstein letter lawsuit.
The dismissal also leaves a separate question about legal expenses. The defendants have sought attorneys’ fees and costs, but the court had not awarded them as part of its decision.
For now, the October 31 ruling prevents Trump from making another attempt to revise the same defamation claims before Gayles. Any further challenge to the dismissal will depend on the appeals process rather than another amended complaint in the district court.
IMAGE: Darrin Gayles. Photo: U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee / Wikimedia, taken 2014-04-01, Public domain