{"id":15693,"date":"2026-04-14T15:43:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T07:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=15693"},"modified":"2026-04-14T15:43:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T07:43:35","slug":"us-judge-throws-out-trumps-defamation-case-against-wall-street-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=15693","title":{"rendered":"US judge throws out Trump’s defamation case against Wall Street Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A federal judge on Monday dismissed Donald Trump\u2019s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, a setback for the U.S. president in his legal campaign \u200bagainst media companies he accuses of treating him unfairly.
The case was one of several that Trump, a Republican, has filed during his presidency against major \u200cmedia outlets over reporting he has characterized as unfair or false. That has led to concern among Democrats and press freedom advocates that he is seeking to use defamation cases to quell critical coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s lawsuit said the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper tarnished his reputation with an article describing a birthday card to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein bearing Trump\u2019s signature. Trump and his lawyers said the card is fake, even after it was released \u200bby lawmakers investigating Epstein\u2019s case.
Trump filed the lawsuit in July 2025 as his administration faced criticism from its conservative base and congressional Democrats over its handling of \u200bthe case against Epstein, a financier who died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 after being arrested on child sex trafficking \u2060charges.
Miami-based U.S. District Court Judge Darrin P. Gayles, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said in tossing the case that Trump had not come close to meeting the “actual malice” \u200bstandard that public figures must clear in defamation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That means they must prove not only that a public statement about them was false but also that the media outlet or person \u200bwho made the statement knew or should have known that it was false.
“This complaint comes nowhere close to this standard,” Gayles wrote. “Quite the opposite.”
Gayles said Trump could file an amended version of the lawsuit by April 27.
Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform that he would re-file the lawsuit by that date.
A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal’s parent, said in a statement, “We are pleased \u200bwith the judge\u2019s decision to dismiss this complaint. We stand behind the reliability, rigor and accuracy of The Wall Street Journal’s reporting.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ruling did not address whether the article was true.
The Epstein case generated conspiracy theories that the government covered up the financier\u2019s ties to the rich and powerful and obscured details about his death, which was ruled a suicide.
Trump amplified such conspiracy theories about Epstein during the 2024 presidential campaign and vowed to open the government\u2019s investigative files if he won. He reneged on that promise but has called the ensuing scandal a Democratic hoax.
Trump and Epstein were once friends, but Trump says he severed ties before Epstein pleaded guilty to prostitution \u200bcharges in 2008. Trump has consistently denied \u200bknowing about Epstein\u2019s crimes.
His lawsuit against the \u2060Wall Street Journal came in response to an article asserting that Trump\u2019s signature was on a 2003 birthday card for Epstein that included a drawing of a naked woman and a reference to shared secrets in an imaginary dialogue between Trump and Epstein.
Trump\u2019s lawsuit repeatedly asserts \u200bthe card is fake and takes the Journal to task for not publishing it as proof, but a copy was later \u200breleased by Democrats in \u2060Congress who obtained it from Epstein\u2019s estate.
WSJ WARNS OF CHILLING EFFECT ON SPEECH
In seeking to dismiss the case, the Wall Street Journal said the lawsuit was meritless and threatened to chill the speech of those who would dare to publish content the president does not like.
Trump has also sued the BBC, citing misleading editing of a speech, the New York Times over articles and a \u2060book about \u200bhim, and a newspaper in Iowa over a poll that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris in \u200bthe 2024 presidential campaign.
All three outlets have denied wrongdoing.
ABC settled with Trump after he sued over an anchor\u2019s inaccurate comments about a civil case accusing him of sexual abuse. CBS struck a similar deal after Trump sued \u200bover its edits to an interview with Harris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge on Monday dismissed Donald Trump\u2019s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, a setback for the U.S. president in his legal campaign \u200bagainst media companies he accuses of treating him unfairly.The case was one of several that Trump, a Republican, has filed during his presidency against major \u200cmedia outlets over reporting he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1907,1926,1724],"class_list":["post-15693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-his","tag-said","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nUS judge throws out Trump's defamation case against Wall Street Journal - 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