The Trump Wall Street Journal lawsuit dismissed on Saturday, 31 October 2026, ended the district-court chapter of one of the most closely watched media-law fights of the year — at least for now. U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles, sitting in Miami, threw out President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation case against the newspaper’s publisher for a second time, this time with prejudice, ruling that the president had failed to show the paper published its July 2025 report about a birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein with actual malice. Trump’s legal team has said it will appeal.
Why the Trump Wall Street Journal lawsuit was dismissed
In a 20-page ruling, Judge Gayles found that Trump’s amended complaint “falls short of pleading actual malice,” the legal standard a public figure must meet to win a defamation case against a news organisation. The judge described the allegations about malice as “conclusory, vague, sometimes inconsistent with the Article, and often irrelevant” to whether the defendants knew or should have known that the statements in the article were purportedly false.
Gayles was blunt about the case as a whole. “The Court agrees that President Trump’s defamation claims lack merit,” he wrote, adding that the lawsuit was “grasping at straws” as it attempted to “manufacture” flaws in the Journal’s investigative reporting. The judge also noted that the article had not hidden Trump’s side of the story: “Rather, it informed readers that President Trump decried the Letter as a fake and denied writing it.”
The ruling followed a hearing in August 2026, at which Trump’s lawyer Alejandro Brito argued that the Journal’s reporters had failed to do the investigation needed to determine whether Trump signed the letter, and that the headline itself amounted to a statement that Trump wrote and signed it. Gayles voiced scepticism during the hearing, telling Brito: “I don’t see those words specifically used in the article.”
This was the second time Gayles had dismissed the case. He threw out the original complaint in April 2026, ruling that it relied on “formulaic” assertions of malice that came “nowhere close” to the legal standard for a public figure — but he dismissed it without prejudice and gave Trump the chance to file an amended complaint, which Trump did in May. The October ruling closes that second chance at the trial-court level.
What “dismissed with prejudice” means
When a case is dismissed with prejudice, it cannot be refiled: the dismissal is final at that court, and the same claims cannot be brought again before the same judge. That is the key difference from the April dismissal, which was without prejudice and expressly left the door open for a corrected complaint.
Dismissal with prejudice does not, however, end the matter entirely. Trump can still challenge the ruling through an appeal to a higher court, and his legal team has signalled that it plans to do so. The judge has not yet decided whether the defendants are entitled to recover their legal fees.
It is also worth being precise about what the ruling does and does not decide. The dismissal turns on whether Trump adequately alleged actual malice; it does not, by itself, determine whether the newspaper’s underlying reporting was factually accurate.
The Epstein birthday letter at the centre of the case
The lawsuit grew out of a Wall Street Journal report published in July 2025. The paper reported that a book given to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003 included a letter with typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, signed “Donald.” The letter ended with the words: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” The story was headlined: “Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump.”
The album was reportedly compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s long-time associate, who was later convicted of sex-trafficking offences. Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. After the Journal’s story appeared, members of the House Oversight Committee received a copy of the birthday book, provided by lawyers from Epstein’s estate, containing the letter.
Trump denied writing the letter and called the story “false, malicious, and defamatory,” describing the letter as “a fake thing.” He sued in July 2025, naming the Journal’s publisher Dow Jones, its parent company News Corp, News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson and chairman emeritus Rupert Murdoch, and two Journal reporters. The suit brought two defamation claims, seeking at least $10 billion in damages on each; the original complaint was reported as a $20 billion suit.
The actual-malice standard and New York Times v. Sullivan
The legal heart of the case is the actual-malice standard, which comes from the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1964 ruling in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. Under that standard, a public official or public figure suing for defamation must show that the defendant knew a statement was false or published it with reckless disregard for whether it was true. The bar is deliberately high: it is designed to protect reporting on public figures, even when that reporting turns out to be wrong, unless the publisher acted with knowledge or reckless disregard.
Judge Gayles, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, applied that test and found the amended complaint wanting. The judge’s point was not that the Journal’s reporting was proven true, but that Trump’s lawyers had not plausibly alleged the state of mind the law requires — that the paper knew the story was false or recklessly disregarded the truth. A denial by the subject of a story, the judge reasoned, cannot by itself block publication: 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.”
That reasoning is why the case matters beyond the two parties. The Sullivan standard has governed American libel law for more than six decades, and this ruling is the latest reminder of how hard it is for a sitting president — or any public figure — to win a defamation case against a news organisation in the United States.
What happens next: appeal, fees and the wider pattern
The immediate next step is an appeal. A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said the president would appeal the ruling, which would put the case before a federal appeals court. The district judge has not decided the separate question of whether Dow Jones and the other defendants can recover their legal costs.
The case is one of several defamation suits Trump has filed against media outlets, and it arrives days before the 2026 midterm elections, with early voting already at record levels. It also follows other recent court rulings involving the administration, including a judge’s decision to block a Trump asylum policy for children, while the president has returned to the campaign trail with rallies in Kansas and Iowa.
For readers, the practical meaning is simple: the lawsuit against the Journal is over at the trial court, the newspaper’s reporting stands unretracted, and the only remaining question is whether an appeals court agrees with Judge Gayles that the complaint failed to allege actual malice.
Trump Wall Street Journal lawsuit dismissed: key dates
2003 — A birthday album is compiled for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday, reportedly including a letter signed “Donald.”
July 2025 — The Wall Street Journal publishes its report on the letter; Trump sues Dow Jones, News Corp, Murdoch, Thomson and two reporters.
April 2026 — Judge Gayles dismisses the original complaint without prejudice, allowing Trump to refile.
May 2026 — Trump files an amended complaint.
August 2026 — The judge hears arguments on the amended complaint.
31 October 2026 — Gayles dismisses the case with prejudice in a 20-page ruling; Trump’s team says it will appeal.
Sources: CNN; The Wall Street Journal; The Associated Press; Reuters; The Hindu BusinessLine.