Judge Dismisses Trump’s $10 Billion Defamation Lawsuit Against Wall Street Journal

A federal judge in Florida has permanently thrown out Donald Trump’s defamation claim against the Wall Street Journal regarding its reporting on a birthday letter allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein.

Saying the president was "grasping at straws," a federal judge on Saturday threw out Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch over a story reporting on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump had sued the media outlet after it published a letter to Epstein purportedly written and signed by the president as part of a birthday book. A federal judge wrote the lawsuit attemped to "manufacture" flaws in the Journal's investigative reporting.

A federal judge threw out Donald Trump’s renewed $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and ruled that it can’t be filed again, marking another setback for the president’s legal fights with the press. President Donald Trump denied writing a birthday letter to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which was the subject of a 2025 Wall Street Journal article.

NPR reported the story as "'Grasping at straws': Judge dismisses Trump suit against Wall Street Journal over Epstein letter." NBC News reported the story as "Judge dismisses Trump’s $10 billion defamation suit over Epstein birthday card story." RT reported the story as "Judge rules on Trump’s defamation lawsuit against WSJ over Epstein letter."

Coverage is split across the political spectrum: 3 left-leaning outlets, 6 center outlets, 7 right-leaning outlets. L1FE compares the framing across these sources rather than amplifying any single outlet's interpretation.

16 sources have covered this story, including NPR, RT, Times of India and BBC News and 12 other outlets. The earliest reporting in the cluster landed about 1 hour ago.

Source accounts have not fully aligned on every figure tied to this story (different reports cite 10 billion, 10, 2025); the published L1FE summary holds those specifics open until more sources converge.