A federal judge in Florida has dismissed Donald Trump's defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, ruling that the complaint failed to meet the legal threshold required for public figures to win such cases.
The lawsuit stemmed from a July 2025 Journal story reporting that Trump had sent a lewd letter to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein as part of a 50th birthday correspondence album. Trump claimed the drawing at the center of the piece was fabricated and sued both the newspaper and Murdoch's News Corporation, which owns the Journal.
Judge Darrin P. Gayles found that Trump did not adequately demonstrate that the Journal published the article knowing it was false or with serious doubts about its accuracy. That standard, known as actual malice, is the hurdle public figures must clear to win defamation cases.
In his ruling, the judge noted substantial evidence showing the Journal had made efforts to verify the drawing's authenticity. "Because President Trump has not plausibly alleged that Defendants published the Article with actual malice, both Counts must be dismissed," Gayles wrote.
The lawsuit carried unusual weight because Murdoch has been one of Trump's most reliable media allies. Trump had personally called Murdoch in an attempt to block publication before the story ran.
The drawing itself remained unpublished by the Journal initially. The House Oversight Committee released the image publicly in September after obtaining it from Epstein's estate.
Trump's legal team signaled it would use the two-week window to file an amended complaint with additional evidence of the Journal's alleged knowledge of falsity. A spokesperson said the President would "continue to hold accountable those who traffic in Fake News to mislead the American People."
Dow Jones, the News Corp division operating the Journal, issued a statement defending the reporting. "We stand behind the reliability, rigor and accuracy of The Wall Street Journal's reporting," the company said.
The dismissal comes as Trump's administration faces separate litigation with multiple media outlets over First Amendment issues and maintains an active defamation case against the BBC regarding a documentary.
Author James Rodriguez: "Murdoch getting sued by Trump over his own paper is the kind of awkward tangle only this moment in media could produce, and the judge's malice ruling makes clear Trump faces a steep climb to win."
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