WASHINGTON: A federal judge on Monday dismissed Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, a setback for the US president in his legal campaign against media companies he accuses of treating him unfairly.
The case was one of several that Trump, a Republican, has filed during his presidency against major media outlets over reporting he has characterized as unfair or false. That has led to concern among Democrats and press freedom advocates that he is seeking to use defamation cases to quell critical coverage.
Trump’s lawsuit said the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper tarnished his reputation with an article describing a birthday card to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein bearing Trump’s signature. Trump and his lawyers said the card is fake, even after it was released by lawmakers investigating Epstein’s case.
Trump filed the lawsuit in July 2025 as his administration faced criticism from its conservative base and congressional Democrats over its handling of the case against Epstein, a financier who died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges.
Miami-based US District Court Judge Darrin P. Gayles, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said in tossing the case that Trump had not come close to meeting the “actual malice” standard that public figures must clear in defamation.
That means they must prove not only that a public statement about them was false but also that the media outlet or person who made the statement knew or should have known that it was false.
“This complaint comes nowhere close to this standard,” Gayles wrote. “Quite the opposite.” Gayles said Trump could file an amended version of the lawsuit by April 27. A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said he would refile the lawsuit.
