Judge Dismisses Trump’s Wall Street Journal Defamation Lawsuit Over Published Epstein ‘Birthday Book’ for a Second Time

By Payton Turkeltaub

Payton Turkeltaub

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A federal judge has once again dismissed President Donald Trump’s defamation claims against the Wall Street Journal over a 2025 report by the paper that a 2003 birthday letter to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was purportedly written by Trump.

Trump’s lawsuit “falls short of pleading actual malice,” wrote U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles in his opinion on Saturday. “Indeed, the allegations regarding malice are conclusory, vague, sometimes inconsistent with the Article, and often irrelevant to whether Defendants knew or should have known that the statements in the Article were purportedly false.” Judge Gayles dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning Trump cannot refile the claim.

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