WASHINGTON, November 1 (Aalimi Nation) – A federal judge in Miami has thrown out, for good, President Donald Trump's defamation lawsuit over a newspaper report on a birthday letter linked to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, ruling that the claim could not meet the legal test for malice.
Judge Darrin Gayles of the US District Court issued the order on Saturday, October 31. He dismissed the case "with prejudice", a designation that bars Trump from bringing the same claim again in the trial court. The suit named the newspaper, its owner Rupert Murdoch and others as defendants.
The judge held that Trump had failed to plead "actual malice", the standard that public figures in the United States must satisfy to win a defamation case. Under that rule, a plaintiff must show that a publisher knew a statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. "The Amended Complaint falls short of pleading actual malice," Gayles wrote.
He described the president's allegations on that point as "conclusory, vague, sometimes inconsistent with the Article and often irrelevant." The judge also said Trump was "grasping at straws" and suggested that his lawyers had tried "to manufacture flaws with the investigation."
The newspaper published its report on July 17, 2025. It described a sexually suggestive note that it said carried Trump's name and formed part of an album of letters compiled for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. The album was reportedly assembled by Ghislaine Maxwell.
Trump has denied writing the note, signing it or drawing the artwork that accompanied it. He called the letter fake. A copy of the letter was later released by the House Oversight Committee.
Trump filed his lawsuit in Miami the next day, seeking multibillion-dollar damages. Reports differ on the exact sum claimed, with some citing $10 billion.
In April 2026, Gayles dismissed the original complaint but allowed Trump to file a revised version. The amended complaint, filed in May, argued that the newspaper had been reckless because it did not show how its reporters obtained and verified the letter. The latest ruling rejects that argument.
Dismissal with prejudice is final at the trial level, which leaves an appeal as the main route open to the president. The coverage reviewed does not say whether Trump or his lawyers intend to appeal, and no statement from the White House or from the newspaper on the ruling was found.
The ruling turned on the legal standard of actual malice, not on a finding about whether the letter itself is genuine. That standard, set by the US Supreme Court, is designed to give publishers room to report on public figures without being held liable for honest mistakes.
The decision adds to a series of legal contests in which Trump has challenged media organisations over their reporting. He is also pursuing defamation cases against other news organisations, including a British public broadcaster and a major New York newspaper.
