A federal judge has thrown out Donald Trump's lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, rejecting his claim that the newspaper defamed him in a story about a birthday card he sent to Jeffrey Epstein decades ago.
The court found that Trump failed to meet the legal standard required to proceed with a defamation case. The judge ruled that Trump had not presented sufficient evidence that The Journal published the article with actual malice, the high bar plaintiffs must clear when suing media outlets over coverage of public figures.
Trump's legal team had argued the reporting was false and damaging to his reputation. The dismissal indicates the judge saw no viable path for that argument to succeed, at least at the initial stage of litigation.
The case centered on a 2024 Journal story examining Trump's historical connections to Epstein, the financier who died by suicide in jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Trump has long maintained he had no meaningful relationship with Epstein beyond crossing paths at social events in New York and Florida decades earlier.
The actual malice standard, established in landmark Supreme Court precedent, requires public figures to prove a media defendant knew a statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for truth. It is a demanding threshold that reflects the law's strong protections for press freedom.
Trump has pursued multiple legal challenges against media organizations in recent years, with mixed results in court. This dismissal adds to a pattern of judges ruling against his defamation claims, citing both the legal standards governing such cases and the difficulty of proving falsity when reporting touches on matters of public concern.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "The bar for suing the press over coverage of public figures is deliberately high, and this ruling shows courts are keeping it there."
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