A US federal judge has dismissed President Donald Trump’s multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, ruling that the legal action lacked merit and describing the case as “grasping at straws.”
Trump had filed the lawsuit against Dow Jones and media executive Rupert Murdoch after The Wall Street Journal published a report about an alleged letter bearing Trump’s name that was included in a birthday book prepared for disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.
The report claimed the letter contained suggestive language and a drawing outlining a woman’s body. Trump strongly denied writing or signing the document and argued that the publication had defamed him and violated libel laws.
In a significant legal setback for the president, Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the claims conflicted with protections provided under the First Amendment, which safeguards freedom of the press in the United States.
The ruling marked the second defeat for Trump in the case. The judge had previously dismissed a version of the lawsuit that sought US$20 billion in damages. Trump’s legal team later refiled the action seeking US$10 billion, but Judge Gayles dismissed the revised complaint “with prejudice,” meaning the case cannot be refiled.
In his 20-page decision, Gayles praised the newspaper’s reporting process, pointing to what he described as a thorough and detailed investigation that supported the publication of the article.
The judge wrote that the lawsuit appeared to be an attempt to manufacture flaws in the newspaper’s reporting rather than present a legitimate defamation claim.
The Wall Street Journal’s report regarding Epstein’s birthday book emerged during a period of intense bipartisan scrutiny over the handling of Epstein-related documents, an issue that has continued to generate political and public attention in the United States.
The ruling is being viewed as a major victory for press freedom advocates and a significant legal win for Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, reinforcing strong constitutional protections afforded to news organisations reporting on matters of public interest.
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