Judge dismisses Trump suit against Wall Street Journal over Epstein birthday letter
Also reported by CBS News
Summary
A federal judge dismissed President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch and other defendants over a report about a letter attributed to Trump in Jeffrey Epstein’s 2003 birthday album. The judge ruled that Trump’s amended complaint did not adequately allege actual malice, the legal standard for public figures bringing defamation claims.Key Facts
- U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning Trump cannot refile the same claim.
- Trump sued over a Journal report describing a sexually suggestive letter and drawing that the newspaper said bore his name and appeared in Epstein’s birthday album.
- Trump denied writing the letter and called the report false, malicious and defamatory.
- Gayles said the complaint’s claims of malice were vague, conclusory and sometimes inconsistent with the article.
- The judge noted that the article reported Trump’s denial and his claim that the letter was fake.
- Gayles had dismissed the lawsuit once before, in April, but allowed Trump to file an amended complaint, which he submitted in May.
- The ruling applied the actual-malice standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1964 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision.
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