Judge dismisses Trump lawsuit against Wall Street Journal with prejudice

US District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami dismissed President Trump's defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch with prejudice on Saturday, ruling the amended complaint failed to show the paper acted with actual malice in its reporting on a letter bearing Trump's name in a 2003 birthday album for Jeffrey Epstein.

Why it matters: A dismissal with prejudice ends the case in the district court and cannot be refiled, closing, at this level, the president's highest profile defamation fight against a news organisation and reaffirming the actual malice bar that public figures must clear to sue over reporting.

Data as of Ruling issued Saturday, October 31, 2026, as reported the same day by Axios and the Associated Press, both read in full in this run, with Reuters reporting the same dismissal via Investing.com. The 20-page order itself had not been posted to the public docket mirrors checked in this run, so the ruling's wording is as quoted by Axios and AP. Case history (the April 2026 dismissal without prejudice and the amended complaint) is from the court's earlier orders in Trump v. Murdoch, case 1:25-cv-23232, Southern District of Florida.

A federal judge has thrown out President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, and this time the case cannot be refiled. US District Judge Darrin Gayles, sitting in Miami, issued a 20-page ruling on Saturday dismissing the amended complaint with prejudice, finding that Trump had not shown the Journal acted with actual malice, the standard the Supreme Court set in New York Times v. Sullivan for public figures suing over critical reporting. Gayles wrote that the malice allegations were conclusory and vague, and the Associated Press account of the ruling says he described the lawsuit as grasping at straws in an attempt to manufacture flaws in the Journal’s reporting.

The suit, first filed in July 2025 and seeking 20 billion dollars in damages according to Axios, targeted a Journal story describing a sexually suggestive letter that the paper said bore Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday. Trump denied writing the letter and called the story false and defamatory, and the complaint accused the paper and its reporters of knowingly and recklessly publishing false statements. Gayles dismissed the original complaint in April for the same failure to plead actual malice but allowed an amended filing; Saturday’s ruling dismisses that amended version permanently at district court level. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Axios reported, and no statement from the Journal or Murdoch was reported alongside the ruling.

Judge dismisses Trump lawsuit against Wall Street Journal with prejudice

Sources