U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles on Saturday tossed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its reporting on a birthday letter Trump allegedly wrote to Jeffrey Epstein — a decisive blow to the president’s case against the paper.
“This Order addresses President Donald J. Trump’s second attempt to plead that Defendants… acted with actual malice when they published an article in the Wall Street Journal linking him to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,” Gayles wrote in his ruling. “As with his first attempt, he has failed.”
Because the dismissal was with prejudice, Trump cannot refile the claims. Gayles wrote that because this was Trump’s second attempt to plead his case, dismissal with prejudice was appropriate.
The Journal published its story on July 17, 2025, reporting that a letter bearing Trump’s name appeared in a leather-bound album that Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell compiled for his 50th birthday in 2003. The paper described typewritten text framed by a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman, with Trump’s signature placed below her waist.
Trump denied writing the letter before the story ran and sued the next day, seeking $10 billion from Dow Jones, News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson and Journal reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joseph Palazzolo.
