Judge dismisses Trump's $10bn suit against the Wall Street Journal over Epstein birthday letter

A US federal judge has thrown out President Donald Trump's defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, its parent company Dow Jones and Rupert Murdoch. The suit was about a story on a letter allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein for a 2003 birthday book. The ruling closes the lawsuit, but it leaves open the question that gave the story its political charge: did Trump write the letter?

What's being claimed

The Journal reported that Epstein's 50th birthday book included a letter bearing Trump's name. According to the BBC, the paper described typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, apparently drawn with a heavy marker. It said the text included the line "enigmas never age" and ended with a message about a "wonderful secret".

Trump says he did not write or sign it. His lawsuit argued that the letter was "fake" and that the Journal and its owners devised the story to defame him. His lawyers also argued that, because he denied the letter when the Journal contacted him, the paper should have set aside everything else it had learned and not published.

What the evidence shows

The ruling is narrower than the headlines suggest. Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the refiled suit with prejudice, which means it cannot be filed again. His 20-page decision found that Trump's team had not shown "actual malice". That is the legal standard for public figures: the plaintiff must prove the publisher knew a statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for its truth.

The judge also rejected the argument that a denial should block publication. In the BBC's account, he wrote that if this were the law, journalists would be blocked from publishing negative or contradictory reporting whenever a public figure denied an accusation. He called that a result that "flies in the face" of the American privilege to speak one's mind. He praised the Journal's "thoughtful and detailed investigation" and said the suit was "grasping at straws".

None of this amounts to a court finding that Trump wrote the letter. In the material we have, the decision rests on the actual-malice standard and the First Amendment, not on a ruling about authorship. At the same time, the claim that the letter was a fabrication by the Journal gained no support from the ruling: the judge found no proof that the defendants knew or suspected the story was false.

How outlets covered it

The four articles cover one event. NBC 6 South Florida and WBAL-TV both lead with the judge's "grasping at straws" phrase; only their headlines were available to us, so we cannot say how they handled the authenticity question. The BBC story (web version and syndicated copy) is the only full text. It is careful with wording: the letter is "allegedly written" by Trump, who "has denied" it, and the judge's reasoning is presented as legal rather than factual. All four are mainstream outlets, and none of the material includes a response from the Journal or from Trump's team to the ruling.

What we still don't know

• Whether the letter is authentic. The ruling does not say, and the articles do not report any independent forensic or documentary check beyond the Journal's own reporting.
• Whether Trump will appeal. The provided sources do not say.
• How the Journal and Trump's lawyers responded to the decision.
• Whether other proceedings, such as congressional or document-release processes around the Epstein files, will test the letter's origin. The BBC notes only that the story emerged amid bipartisan criticism of the administration's handling of Epstein documents.

In short, the lawsuit has failed on legal grounds. The question of who wrote the letter is still disputed.