Judge Permanently Dismisses Trump's $10B Defamation Lawsuit Over Epstein Report

A federal judge has permanently dismissed President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch. U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles threw out the case with prejudice, concluding that the legal action failed to demonstrate actual malice in the newspaper's reporting.

The defamation claims stemmed from a 2025 article regarding a birthday book compiled for the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The publication reported that a 2003 birthday letter included in the material was purportedly written by Trump. The president has denied writing the correspondence to Epstein.

This ruling marks the second time the federal court has dismissed Trump's legal challenge over the published report. By dropping the case with prejudice, the court permanently ended the legal battle, with Judge Gayles writing in his decision that the lawsuit "falls short of pleading actual malice."