Judge dismisses Trump's Wall Street Journal defamation suit for good; his team says it will appeal

A federal judge in Miami has dismissed President Donald Trump's defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal for a second and final time. U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles ruled on Saturday, Oct. 31, that Trump again failed to plausibly allege that the newspaper acted with "actual malice" when it reported on a sexually suggestive birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein that bore Trump's name. The dismissal is with prejudice, which means Trump cannot refile the same claims in that court. His legal team says he will appeal.

The ruling does not decide whether Trump wrote the letter. Trump has denied it from the start. It turns on a narrower legal question: what a public figure must show, at the very start of a case, before a lawsuit against a news outlet can go forward.

This story explains what the judge decided, what Trump argued, how each side reads the result, and what comes next.

The case

Trump sued on July 18, 2025, a day after the Journal published its story online. The defendants are Dow Jones & Company, which publishes the Journal; its parent, News Corp.; Rupert Murdoch; News Corp. chief executive Robert Thomson; and reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joseph Palazzolo. Reports differ on the damages sought. CNBC put the figure at $10 billion, while CNN and CBS News described it as a $20 billion suit.

The article said a letter bearing Trump's name was part of a leather-bound album Ghislaine Maxwell compiled for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. It described typewritten text inside a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman, with a signature reading "Donald." It also quoted Trump's denial. "This is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story," he told the paper before publication.

In September 2025, the House Oversight Committee released the birthday book after issuing a subpoena, according to the court's order. Karoline Leavitt, then the White House press secretary, said on social media that Trump did not draw the picture or sign the letter, the order notes.

Gayles dismissed Trump's first complaint in April, but let him try again. Trump filed an amended complaint on May 27, 2026. The defendants moved to dismiss it on June 10, and the court heard arguments on Aug. 5.

What the judge decided

The 20-page order opens with a long quotation from Justice Louis Brandeis, by way of the Supreme Court's 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. Under Sullivan, a public figure can recover for a false statement only by proving the publisher knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. The order says a public figure must plausibly allege actual malice at the outset of a case, before pretrial discovery, because the cost of discovery alone could chill speech.

Gayles found that the amended complaint fell short on each point it raised.

• Denials. Trump argued the Journal should not have published once he and his team said the letter was fake. Gayles rejected this. "Were that the law, any time a public figure or his team denies an accusation, journalists would be immediately blocked from publishing negative or contradictory press," he wrote. He noted that the article reported Trump's denial.
• The investigation. Trump argued the reporting was inadequate. The judge called it "a thoughtful and detailed investigation." He noted the reporters contacted Trump's team, the Justice Department, the FBI, Maxwell's lawyer and others named in the album. "Grasping at straws, the Amended Complaint attempts to manufacture flaws with the investigation," he wrote.
• Maxwell. Trump argued the reporters avoided Maxwell or hid what she told them. Gayles pointed to Trump's own complaint, which says Maxwell later told the Justice Department she did not remember Trump submitting a letter. On that account, the judge wrote, she "had little to offer," and the focus on her was "a red herring."
• Omissions. Trump listed facts the article left out, such as how the letter was typed and how the paper verified the signature. Gayles said editors must choose what to include, and that the article said "[i]t isn't clear how the letter with Trump's signature was prepared."
• The signature. Trump cited a later Journal article comparing the signature with his own. The judge said that article contained "several examples" where Trump's real signature and sketches looked similar to those in the letter.

Gayles also found that Trump's second claim, defamation by implication, failed for another reason. That claim requires proof of special damages, meaning specific financial losses, and the judge found none were pleaded.

Because this was Trump's second try, the judge dismissed with prejudice. He did not decide whether the article was true. He also declined to treat the House-released birthday book as part of the record, because Trump disputes its authenticity.

Fees are still open

The defendants asked the court to make Trump pay their legal fees under Florida or New York laws aimed at lawsuits that chill speech, known as anti-SLAPP laws. Gayles wrote that he "agrees that President Trump's defamation claims lack merit." But he said the parties had not fully briefed which state's law applies. He gave the defendants 30 days to file a fee motion that addresses that question.

The case for Trump's side

Trump's legal team says the fight is not over. "President Trump will continue to press forward in his powerhouse lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other defendants," a spokesman told CNBC and CBS News. "The President will continue to hold those who mislead the American People with Fake News and smears accountable for their actions." A spokesman confirmed to CNBC that Trump plans to appeal. An appeal from a federal court in Florida goes to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Trump's core claim is that the story is false. He denies writing, signing or drawing any part of the letter, and says its tone and wording do not match how he speaks. His amended complaint argued that the paper should have done more to confirm the letter before running it. It cited a 1989 Supreme Court case, Harte-Hanks Communications v. Connaughton, for the idea that a failure to investigate can support a finding of malice. The complaint also alleged that Trump told Murdoch directly that he had not written the letter, and that Murdoch said he would "handle it."

A broader argument on the right questions the Sullivan standard itself. In a 2019 opinion in McKee v. Cosby, Justice Clarence Thomas called Sullivan and later cases "policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law." He argued that defamation law at the founding did not require public figures to prove actual malice. "We should reconsider our jurisprudence in this area," he wrote. Supporters of that view say the standard leaves people in public life with almost no remedy for false stories, because the key evidence about a publisher's state of mind sits with the publisher. A plaintiff who cannot reach discovery may never see it.

The case for the Journal's side

Dow Jones said in a statement: "We're pleased with the court's decision."

CNN predicted the ruling would be celebrated by press-freedom groups that have denounced Trump's suits. The Journal has also maintained that its reporting was true, a question the court did not reach. CNN reported that legal analysts it spoke with could not recall another case of a sitting president suing a news outlet over a story. CNN also placed the case in a pattern of Trump suits against news organizations. Those include a pending $15 billion suit against The New York Times, a $10 billion suit against the BBC, and a suit against Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer that a judge dismissed with prejudice in September.

Legal experts quoted by CNN warned that winning may not be the point. In their view, the publicity and threat of long litigation can pressure news outlets and chill aggressive reporting. The order makes a related point: the cost of discovery is why actual malice must be pleaded early.

A conservative critic of the first complaint

The first dismissal drew criticism from some on the right as well. In April, conservative legal commentator Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, disputed Trump's claim that the judge had "asked" him to refile, according to Mediaite's account of his National Review column. "If Trump's lawyers were aware of such facts, it's difficult to understand how those facts were not included in the original complaint," McCarthy wrote.

Weighing the arguments

Both sides' public framing goes further than the ruling.

The order is not a finding that the Journal's story is true, and it is not a finding that it is false. Gayles said those questions could not be decided at this stage. Anyone who says the ruling proves Trump wrote the letter, or proves he did not, is claiming more than the court decided.

On Trump's side, the argument that a denial should have stopped publication runs into a practical problem. If a denial were enough to show malice, any public figure could block a story by denying it. The judge made this point directly. Calling the reporting "Fake News" describes a view of the story. It does not supply the specific facts about the reporters' knowledge that the legal standard requires.

On the other side, Thomas's critique is a serious one and it draws on earlier opinions by Justice Byron White. It is not a fringe position. But it is an argument for the Supreme Court to change the law, not an argument that Gayles misapplied current law. An appeals court bound by Sullivan would have to apply it.

The fee question may matter as much as the appeal. If the court awards fees under an anti-SLAPP law, Trump would bear the Journal's legal costs on top of the loss.

What to watch

• Whether Trump files a notice of appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, and on what grounds.
• Whether the defendants seek fees within 30 days, and which state's law the court applies.
• Developments in Trump's other media suits, including a Dec. 11 deadline a federal judge set for his deposition in the BBC case, according to CNBC.

Other recent rulings on the administration's communications include a judge's order pulling three taxpayer-funded ads. More on the president is on Donald Trump's profile. For the wider political calendar, see our United States elections guide. How 567 Politics handles disputed claims is explained in our methodology.

This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed against 567 Politics editorial standards. It is based on the court's Oct. 31 order and reporting available as of late morning Monday, Nov. 2. Trump's amended complaint and opposition brief were not obtained; their arguments are described as summarized in the order. Campaign finance data is not included because this story concerns a private defamation suit, not Trump's policy positions or campaign finances, and 567 Politics has no verified FEC snapshot for his profile.

Differing perspectives

Should public figures have to prove actual malice to win a defamation suit?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Keep the actual-malice standard

  Who holds it: U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles, applying Supreme Court and Eleventh Circuit precedent

  In the Oct. 31 order, Gayles wrote that if a denial were enough, "any time a public figure or his team denies an accusation, journalists would be immediately blocked from publishing negative or contradictory press." Quoting the Eleventh Circuit, he said the cost of defending a suit through discovery "could chill free speech nearly as effectively as the absence of the actual malice standard altogether."

  In their words: Trump v. Dow Jones, order of Oct. 31, 2026 (Justia) ↗

• Reconsider the standard

  Who holds it: Justice Clarence Thomas, in a 2019 concurrence in McKee v. Cosby

  Thomas wrote that New York Times v. Sullivan and the decisions extending it "were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law." He said the common law at the time of ratification did not require public figures to meet an actual-malice standard. He wrote: "The States are perfectly capable of striking an acceptable balance," and "We should reconsider our jurisprudence in this area."

  In their words: McKee v. Cosby, Supreme Court, Feb. 19, 2019 (Cornell LII) ↗