On Monday a Florida federal judge threw out US President Donald Trumps £ 7.3 billion ($10 billion) lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and its owner and media titan Rupert Murdoch.
President Trump 'came nowhere close to this standard'
Florida District Judge Darrin P. Gayles argued that President Trump had come 'nowhere close to this standard' and that Trump had done 'quite the opposite' the judge wrote.
President Trump failed to show was 'actual malice' which is the legal standard that the 'plaintiff must prove that a public statement was both false, and that the news organisation or individual who made the statement knew or should have known that it was false or acted in reckless disregard of its falsity.'
'President Trump argues that this allegation shows the Defendants acted with serious doubts about the truth of their reporting, and therefore, with actual malice. The court refuses.'
According to a CNBC article, 'Gayles noted that the article included the fact that Trump denied writing the letter, which makes an allegation of actual malice less plausible.'
In a report from The Independent, 'The president's lawsuit alleges that he told the defendants that the letter 'was a fake before they ran the article,' the judge noted in his ruling.'
'In a footnote, the judge also noted that the 'very existence' of the birthday letter 'bears on whether the article is true and, even if it is false, whether defendants acted with actual malice.''
At the time of the release of the Wall Street Journal article the President wrote on Truth Social that 'I hope Rupert and his 'friends' are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case.'
The Birthday Card
In the Wall Street Journal article published on the 17th of July 2025, 'A pair of small arcs denotes the woman's breasts, and the future president's signature is a squiggly 'Donald' below her waist, mimicking pubic hair,'' reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo said in the article.
'The letter concludes: 'Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,'' they wrote.
On the 3rd of June democrats on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the House of Representatives released what appeared to be the letter described in the Wall Street Journal article
A day after the Journal published the article, Trump filed a lawsuit against the newspaper, the two reporters, Murdoch, News Corp., the company's CEO, Robert Thompson, and Dow Jones and Co.
President Trump Plans To Hit Back
In response, Trump's legal team, in a statement, said, '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 President will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in Fake News to mislead the American People,' the spokesman continued.
A spokesman for the Journal's publisher, Dow Jones & Co., said in a statement, 'We are pleased with the judge's decision to dismiss this complaint.'
'We stand behind the reliability, rigor and accuracy of The Wall Street Journal's reporting,' the spokesman continued.
The president has until the 27th of April to file a new, amended lawsuit.
