A federal judge on Saturday said the president was “grasping at straws” when he dismissed Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch over a report on his ties to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, ruling that the president failed to prove that the defendants made the defamatory statements with actual malice as required by law. The ruling said the lawsuit sought to “create flaws” in the Journal’s investigative report.
When a case is dismissed “with prejudice,” it cannot be refiled again, and the dismissal is permanent and uncontested.
The firings are a blow to Trump and his administration, which have spent his second term developing a hostile relationship with news organizations. In addition to The Wall Street Journal, he is embroiled in lawsuits involving the BBC, the Associated Press and, most recently, CNN, MS NOW and Politico, which sued him to restore access after he was ousted from the White House in mid-September.
Trump denounces media outlets that write content he opposes, often calling them “fake news” and insulting their journalists.
Trump called the report “malicious”
The lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal stems from a report the paper published last year that described a sexually suggestive letter and drawings that the paper said had Trump’s name on them and were included in a 2003 album made for Epstein’s 50th birthday. The letter was reportedly collected by disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell as part of a birthday album for Epstein, several years before he was first arrested in 2006 and subsequently feuded with Trump.
According to the newspaper, the letter with Trump’s name appears to be framed by what appears to be a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman and ends with the words “Happy birthday – maybe every day is another wonderful secret.”
Read more: Trump mired in Epstein controversy after WSJ reports on 2003 letter
Trump denied writing the article and called the report “false, malicious and defamatory.”
The lawsuit, filed in Miami federal court, accuses the newspaper and its reporters of “knowingly and recklessly” publishing “substantial false, defamatory and disparaging statements” that it said caused “substantial financial and reputational harm” to the president.
Lawsuit was dismissed once, then refiled
Gales previously dismissed the lawsuit in April, saying Trump failed to make an argument that the article was published in bad faith. But he gave the president a chance to file an amended complaint, which he did in May.
In Saturday’s ruling, the justices cited the Supreme Court’s landmark 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. The decision makes it harder for public figures to win defamation lawsuits because it requires evidence that the media deliberately published false information or showed a reckless disregard for the truth.
Read more: Trump sues WSJ, Rupert Murdoch over reporting on Epstein ties
“The amended indictment does not allege actual malice,” Gales wrote. “Indeed, the allegations of malice are conclusive, vague, sometimes inconsistent with the article, and generally irrelevant to whether the defendants knew or should have known that the statements in the article were allegedly false.”
The judge also noted that the Journal’s reporting did not ignore or downplay Trump’s denial, “rather, it told readers that President Trump denounced the letter as false and denied writing it.”
Gales also said several other allegations in the lawsuit are without merit.
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