Federal judge dismisses Trump defamation lawsuit against Wall Street Journal

A US judge has thrown out Donald Trump's defamation case against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch. The ruling came on Saturday, October 31, 2026, in Miami. Trump had sued the newspaper for around $10 billion. The case was about a Journal article describing a sexually suggestive letter, reportedly signed by Trump, that appeared in a birthday album for Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. Judge Darrin Gayles ruled that Trump did not prove the newspaper acted with "actual malice," which is required to win a defamation case. The judge also said Trump was trying to "manufacture" problems with the Journal's reporting. Because the case was dismissed "with prejudice," Trump cannot bring it to court again.