Trump lawsuit against Wall Street Journal over Epstein birthday letter rejected

A federal judge has thrown out Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch over a story reporting on his ties to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein.

US District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami dismissed the suit with prejudice, ruling that the president did not prove the defendants made defamatory statements with malice.

The ruling said the lawsuit was “grasping at straws” as it attempted to “manufacture” flaws in the Journal’s investigative reporting.

Mr Murdoch’s media company, News Corp, owns the Wall Street Journal.

When a case is thrown out “with prejudice”, it cannot be refiled again and the dismissal is permanent and incontrovertible.

The lawsuit was issued over a story the Journal published last year describing a sexually suggestive letter that the paper said bore Mr Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday.

The letter was reportedly collected by disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell as part of a birthday album for Epstein years before he was first arrested in 2006 and subsequently had a falling out with Mr Trump.

The letter bearing Mr Trump’s name includes text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman and ends with, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret”, according to the newspaper.

The president denied writing it and called the story “false, malicious and defamatory”.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, accused the paper and its reporters of having “knowingly and recklessly” published “numerous false, defamatory and disparaging statements” which, it alleged, caused “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” to the president.

The dismissal is a blow to Mr Trump and his administration, who have pursued adversarial relationships with news organisations during his second term.

He is still embroiled in lawsuits involving the BBC, the Associated Press and, most recently, CNN, MS Now and Politico, which are suing him for restored access after he banned them from the White House in mid-September.

The president has denounced media outlets that write things to which he objects and frequently calls them “fake news” and insults their journalists.

Judge Gayles previously dismissed the WSJ suit in April, saying Mr Trump had failed to make the argument that the article was published with the intent to be malicious, but he gave the president a chance to file an amended complaint, which he did in May.

In Saturday’s ruling, the judge cited a landmark 1964 ruling by the Supreme Court which made it harder for public figures to win libel lawsuits because it requires proof that a media outlet knowingly published something false or showed a reckless disregard for the truth.

“The amended complaint falls short of pleading actual malice,” Judge Gayles wrote. “Indeed, the allegations regarding malice are conclusory, vague, sometimes inconsistent with the article, and often irrelevant to whether defendants knew or should have known that the statements in the article were purportedly false.”

The judge also noted that the Journal’s story did not ignore or minimise Mr Trump’s denial, “Rather, it informed readers that President Trump decried the Letter as a fake and denied writing it.”

Judge Gayles also said several other allegations in the lawsuit did not have merit.