A federal judge on Monday dismissed President Donald Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, dealing a setback to Trump's effort to punish the paper over its reporting on his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The ruling, issued by U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles in Florida, found that Trump had not sufficiently shown the article was published with the kind of intentional or reckless falsehood required to sustain a defamation case brought by a public figure.
The case centered on a Wall Street Journal report about a birthday album prepared for Epstein's 50th birthday, which included a letter the paper said bore Trump's name. Trump denied writing the letter, called the story false and defamatory, and sued the Journal, Murdoch and others in July 2025, seeking $10 billion in damages.
