President Trump's $10 billion defamation battle with the Wall Street Journal involving a reported birthday letter to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is over for good. A federal judge in Florida dismissed the president's lawsuit on Saturday with prejudice, the Independent reports. The ruling permanently blocks Trump from refiling the case against the Journal, owner Rupert Murdoch, and the newspaper's journalists. Judge Darrin P. Gayles found Trump failed to meet the "actual malice" standard required for public figures, calling his allegations "conclusory, vague," and sometimes inconsistent with the article itself.
The story published by the Journal last year described a sexually suggestive letter with Trump's signature that was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein's 50th birthday, per the AP. Trump insisted the sexually suggestive 2003 birthday note to Epstein is fake and argued that once he denied it, the Journal should not have published. The Miami judge rejected that logic as incompatible with the First Amendment, warning that if denials alone stopped publication, reporting on public figures would be effectively muzzled.
The letter has text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman and ends with, "Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret," the Journal reported. Gayles noted that Trump's first lawsuit against the newspaper over the birthday card report also was rejected. "As with his first attempt, he has failed," the judge wrote, per CNBC. "Grasping at straws, the Amended Complaint attempts to manufacture flaws with the investigation." The second filing added new details and claims.
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