Trump refiled his $10 billion Epstein letter lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, and the judge said he was ‘grasping at straws’
Dismissed with prejudice.
A federal judge has once again dismissed President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), and this time, the judge made it clear he thinks the president was “grasping at straws.” According to The Hill, this is the second time the suit has been thrown out, stemming from an article about an alleged letter Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami dismissed the lawsuit on Saturday, October 31, 2026, ruling that Trump did not prove the defendants made defamatory statements with actual malice, which is a key legal requirement. The judge even noted that the lawsuit seemed to be trying to “manufacture” flaws in the Journal’s investigative reporting. When a case is dismissed “with prejudice,” it cannot be refiled again. The dismissal is permanent and can’t be challenged.
The president initially filed the lawsuit last year after The Wall Street Journal published an article detailing a letter he allegedly sent to Epstein for the disgraced financier’s 50th birthday in 2003. Trump has consistently denied writing the letter and has claimed it was fake. The lawsuit alleged that the article caused “overwhelming” financial and reputational harm to the president.
The lawsuit was first dismissed in April 2026
Back in April, Judge Gayles tossed the lawsuit for the first time, ruling that the president had failed to establish “actual malice” in his complaint against the outlet. However, he did give President Trump a chance to file an amended complaint, which his lawyers did in May. They again argued that the article contained “false, defamatory, and malicious statements.”
In Saturday’s ruling, Judge Gayles reiterated that the amended complaint “falls short of pleading actual malice.” He wrote that the allegations regarding malice were “conclusory, vague, sometimes inconsistent with the Article, and often irrelevant to whether Defendants knew or should have known that the statements in the Article were purportedly false.” He stressed that because this was President Trump’s second attempt to allege his claims, dismissal with prejudice was appropriate.
A spokesperson for President Trump’s legal team responded saying the president “will continue to press forward in his powerhouse lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other defendants.” The statement added that “The President will continue to hold those who mislead the American People with Fake News and smears accountable for their actions.”
The letter that sparked all of this was reportedly collected by Ghislaine Maxwell
Maxwell, Epstein’s co-defendant, collected the letter as part of a birthday album for Epstein years before he was first arrested in 2006. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee later released the letter. It supposedly contained a line that read, “Happy Birthday, may every day be another wonderful secret,” inside of a drawing that resembles the silhouette of a woman. The letter bearing Trump’s name includes this text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman.
In his amended complaint filed in May, Trump’s legal team argued that “Of the two surviving individuals who could substantiate whether President Trump had submitted a birthday letter, one person, President Trump, vehemently denied the existence of the alleged letter, and the other person has testified to a federal official that she had no knowledge of it.” The “other person” referenced in that statement is Ghislaine Maxwell.
The complaint also added, “Defendants Safdar, Palazzolo, Dow Jones, and News Corp either knew these facts, or deliberately avoided investigating such information, while nevertheless publishing the false, malicious, and defamatory Article.” However, the latest ruling from the judge stated that “President Trump’s focus on Maxwell is entirely misplaced,” adding that her testimony was not sufficient to plead actual malice.
The judge also noted that WSJ’s story did not ignore or minimize President Trump’s denial. He said, “Rather, it informed readers that President Trump decried the Letter as a fake and denied writing it.”
The dismissal is a setback for Trump and his administration
Trump has pursued adversarial relationships with news organizations during his second term, often denouncing media outlets that write things he objects to. He frequently calls them “fake news” and sometimes insults their journalists.
Besides WSJ, Trump has been involved in lawsuits with other major news organizations, including the BBC and The Associated Press. He also has ongoing disputes with CNN, MSNBC, and Politico, which are suing him for restored access after he banished them from the White House in mid-September.
The Supreme Court’s landmark 1964 ruling in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan makes it really hard for public figures like Trump to win libel lawsuits, per NPR. That decision requires proof that a media outlet knowingly published something false or showed a reckless disregard for the truth. This “actual malice” standard is a high bar.
Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. His death brought a lot of attention to his connections.
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