A federal judge on Saturday dismissed President Donald Trump's defamation lawsuit against media baron Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal over the newspaper's reporting on a purported 50th birthday letter to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami ruled that Trump again failed to plausibly allege that the newspaper and other defendants acted with actual malice when they published the story in July 2025.
"Grasping at straws, the Amended Complaint attempts to manufacture flaws with the investigation," Gayles wrote in the 20-page ruling, which dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice.
The judge said the Journal had conducted a "thoughtful and detailed investigation" and rejected Trump's argument that the newspaper should not have published the story after he denied writing the letter.
Gayles did not determine whether Trump actually authored the disputed letter.