A federal judge dismissed on Monday Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal for an article last summer claiming he sent Jeffrey Epstein a lewd birthday letter in 2003, but the President’s legal team is set to refile it.
As Reuters reported, Darrin Gayles, a U.S. district judge for Florida’s Southern District, dismissed the suit, saying it did not rise to “actual malice” standards for public figures alleging defamation:
The judge wrote that the Journal’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 assertion that the newspaper acted with actual malice, the judge said.
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In his lawsuit, Trump called the alleged birthday greeting “fake” and sought $10 billion for what he called damage to his reputation.
News Corp’s asset Dow Jones, the Journal‘s publisher, and News Corp itself defended the accuracy of the July 17, 2025, article, Reuters reported.
In a statement obtained by Breitbart News, Trump’s legal team said it would refile the suit by the April 27 deadline.
“President Trump will follow Judge Gayles’s ruling and guidance to refile this powerhouse lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other Defendants,” a spokesman for Trump’s legal team said. “The President will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in Fake News to mislead the American People.”
The lawsuit stemmed from a Journal article from last July, alleging that Trump sent a birthday letter to the late sex offender for his 50th birthday featuring third-person stylistic text inside a drawing of a naked woman and Trump’s alleged signature.
A Truth Social post at the time from the president’s account said Trump “warned” the publication and News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch that the letter was “FAKE.”
“The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch, personally, were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE and, if they print it, they will be sued,” the post read in part.
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