Miami Judge Dismisses Trump Lawsuit Against The Wall Street Journal Over Epstein Letter Story
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami dismissed President Donald Trump's multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch with prejudice, ruling the president did not prove the defendants acted with actual malice, the Associated Press reported.
A federal judge in Miami has thrown out President Donald Trump's multibillion-dollar lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch over the newspaper's reporting on his ties to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, the Associated Press reported Saturday.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the suit with prejudice. He ruled that the president did not prove the defendants made defamatory statements with actual malice — the legal standard a public figure must meet in a defamation case. The ruling said the lawsuit was "grasping at straws" as it attempted to "manufacture" flaws in the Journal's investigative reporting, AP reported.
A dismissal with prejudice is final: the case cannot be refiled, and the dismissal is permanent, AP noted. The suit had challenged the Journal's story reporting on Trump's ties to Epstein, the financier whose case has shadowed public life for years.
The ruling lands in the final weekend of the midterm campaign, with control of Congress on Tuesday's ballot and the president's legal and political battles running in parallel. It was handed down in Miami's federal court — a South Florida decision on a case that drew national attention from the day it was filed.
