US President Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch.
Julia Demarie Nikinson | Julia Demarie Nikinson Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
A federal judge in Florida on Monday dismissed a $10 billion lawsuit against media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal for defaming President Donald Trump with an article alleging he sent notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a “vulgar” letter on his 50th birthday.
But Judge Darrin Gales said in a ruling in U.S. District Court in Miami that Trump will have the opportunity to file a new amended lawsuit over the July 2024 letter published by the Journal.
Gales, who categorically denies that Trump sent a letter to his then-friend Epstein in 2003, said he was forced to dismiss the civil complaint because “there is no plausible argument that the defendants actually published the article with malicious intent.”
According to case law, a plaintiff who is a public figure like President Trump must prove that the defendant had actual malice when he made the allegedly defamatory statements.
Gales said Trump’s accusations “fall short of an allegation of actual malice,” adding that they “fall far short of the standard of showing that the president intentionally avoided investigating the veracity of statements published by the newspaper about the letter.”
“The article explains that Defendants sought comment from President Trump, Justice Department officials, and the FBI before publishing the article,” the judge wrote. “President Trump responded in the negative, the Justice Department did not respond at all, and the FBI declined to comment. In short, the complaint and article confirm that the defendants attempted to investigate.”
But in giving Trump a second chance in the case, the justices pointed to another case law that says plaintiffs “should be given an opportunity to amend their complaint” when a lawsuit is dismissed for failing to plead facts that “raise an inference of actual malice.”
The judge’s ruling did not address the question of whether the statements made by the Journal in the article were true or whether they were defamatory.
Trump plans to refile amended lawsuit over Epstein letters
“President Trump will follow Judge Gales’ ruling and guidance in reinstituting this strong case against The Wall Street Journal and all other defendants,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement.
“The President will continue to hold accountable those who circulate fake news to mislead the American people,” the spokesperson said.
The White House declined to comment, referring questions to Trump’s legal team.
CNBC has reached out to the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Murdoch’s company, for comment. News Corp.
Lawyers for the defendants said in legal filings that Trump’s case should be dismissed because the article about the letter was true, the article was not defamatory, and Trump had not shown that the newspaper acted with actual malice.
Letter to Epstein showed outline of woman’s body
On July 17, the Wall Street Journal published an article alleging that a letter album signed by Mr. Trump was included in a letter album given to Mr. Epstein on his 50th birthday. According to the article, Trump sent the letter at the request of Ghislaine Maxwell, a close friend of Epstein who was convicted two decades later of recruiting underage girls for sexual abuse by Epstein.
The paper noted that the letter “contains several lines of typewritten text surrounded by the outline of a naked woman, appearing to have been hand-drawn with a thick marker.”
Journal reporters Khadijah Safdar and Joe Palazzolo said in an article that “a pair of small arcs represent a woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a wavy ‘Donald’ below a woman’s waist, imitating pubic hair.”
“The letter ends with: ‘Happy birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret,'” they wrote.
President Trump angrily denied writing the letter, saying, “This is not me. This is a fake.”
“I have never painted a picture in my life. I have never painted a picture of a woman,” the president said at the time.
The day after the Journal published the article, President Trump filed a lawsuit against the Journal, two News Corp. Murdoch reporters, its CEO Robert Thompson, and the newspaper’s publisher, Dow Jones.
On September 8, House Democrats released an image of what appeared to be a letter to Epstein signed by President Trump, which matched the description of the letter detailed in the Journal article. The letter was obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after it issued a subpoena to Epstein’s assets.
White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said at the time of the announcement that it had been proven that President Trump did not draw or sign the image.
Epstein committed suicide in August 2019 while being held without bail at a federal prison in Manhattan. He had been arrested on child prostitution charges a few weeks earlier.
