A US judge has permanently dismissed Donald Trump's lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, ending his challenge over its reporting on an alleged 'bawdy' birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein, citing a failure to establish 'actual malice'.
A US judge has dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal with prejudice, meaning it cannot be amended or refiled. This decision follows an earlier dismissal in April that had allowed Trump to revise his complaint. The lawsuit stemmed from a Wall Street Journal article alleging Trump sent a 'bawdy' letter to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, which Trump denied as fabricated. The court repeatedly noted the newspaper’s efforts to obtain Trump’s response before publication and its inclusion of his direct denials as evidence of appropriate reporting standards. Judge Darrin P Gayles issued the final dismissal after determining Trump’s amended complaint still failed to establish 'actual malice', the high legal threshold public figures must meet for defamation claims. Trump's legal team stated he 'will continue to press forward' despite the ruling, while a Dow Jones spokesperson expressed pleasure with the decision. The lawsuit garnered attention because it named Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Journal's parent company, among the defendants, and Trump had personally contacted Murdoch to try and stop the article's publication. The report was titled 'Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump.' The image of the letter was later released by the House oversight committee, not originally by the Journal.
