A federal judge dismissed President Donald Trump‘s defamation claims against the Wall Street Journal over a report by the newspaper about a birthday letter purportedly written by Trump to Jeffrey Epstein.
Judge Darrin Phillip Gayles of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Monday said in a ruling that Trump’s lawsuit “fails to adequately allege actual malice,” a legal standard in the U.S. for proving defamation.
Trump had been seeking at least $20 billion in damages in the suit against the WSJ, parent companies Dow Jones & Co. and News Corp, the reporters on the story and Rupert Murdoch. But the judge wrote in the decision that Trump’s complaint “is devoid of any allegations regarding special damages.”
However, the judge also declined to rule on the veracity of the WSJ’s report.
“Because the Court finds that the Complaint fails to adequately allege actual malice, it declines to address these issues at this juncture. Moreover, whether President Trump was the author of the Letter or Epstein’s friend are questions of fact that cannot be determined at this stage of the litigation,” the judge wrote.
Because Trump has only made one attempt to state his claims, the court dismissed the complaint “without prejudice,” meaning the president is allowed to file an amended complaint. The judge set a deadline of April 27, 2026, for Trump to do so. A copy of the judge’s ruling is available at this link.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s story in question, published July 17, 2025, a letter bearing Trump’s name appeared in a birthday book containing letters from the family and friends of Epstein, the disgraced financier who was a convicted sex offender. In an interview with the newspaper, the president denied writing the letter. “This is not me,” Trump said, as quoted by the Journal. “This is a fake thing.” The Journal reported that Trump’s letter “contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair. The letter concludes: ‘Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.’” Epstein died in his jail cell in 2019, with a medical examiner ruling the cause was suicide by hanging.
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