President Donald Trump suffered another court loss after a federal judge on Monday threw out his $10 billion lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch. Trump argued that the publication defamed him after it reported on a letter it claimed Trump wrote to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for his birthday.
In his decision, U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles wrote that Trump’s team came “nowhere close” to making a case that the Journal’s report on the authenticity of the letter in the Epstein files was “actual malice.”
Gayles highlighted the publication’s thorough efforts to confirm the letter’s legitimacy, noting that the paper also reached out to the FBI and the Department of Justice for comment.
“President Trump’s conclusory allegation that Defendants had contradictory evidence and failed to investigate is rebutted by the Article and is insufficient to establish actual malice,” the judge wrote.
In a defamation lawsuit, the plaintiff, in this case Trump, must prove that the Wall Street Journal either knew the article was false when it was published or acted with reckless disregard for evidence suggesting it was likely false. It’s a tough legal hill for a public personality to climb compared to a private individual who would have a lower legal bar to hurdle.
The letter included Trump’s name and typed lines framed within the outline of a naked woman. Trump’s alleged signature is at the bottom of the letter, which some claim resembles pubic hair. One of the written lines reads, “May every day be another wonderful secret,” and calls Epstein a “pal.”
Did Trump write the note?
Trump has continued to claim that he didn’t write the note, calling it a “fake letter.”
“These are not my words, not the way I talk,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Also, I don’t draw pictures.”
However, Democrats in the House Oversight Committee released the image less than two months after the Wall Street Journal article was published. The image was part of a birthday booklet that Epstein’s coconspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, made for his 50th birthday.
The lawsuit names the WSJ’s parent company, Dow Jones, plus former News Corp. chair Rupert Murdoch, current CEO Robert Thomson and the reporters who wrote the article. The lawsuit didn’t seem to hurt Trump’s relationship with Murdoch, Politico reports, since Trump filmed a video for Murdoch’s 95th birthday party in March. In the video, Trump called Murdoch a “legendary” and praised his “courage, vision, and determination,” the Murdoch-owned New York Post reports.
What’s next?
While the judge threw out the lawsuit, he still allowed Trump’s team to refile its suit. Gayles allowed them two weeks to revise their complaint proving “actual malice.”
According to a statement obtained by Politico, a Trump spokesperson confirmed that the president intends to follow the judge’s instructions.
“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,” the statement read. “The President will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in Fake News to mislead the American People.”
Trump has previously sued media companies that he believed slighted him. Two cases, his lawsuits against CBS News and ABC News, led to large settlements in Trump’s favor. Trump’s legal team has lost defamation suits against other outlets, including the New York Times, which it has already refiled.