Federal judge dismisses Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against Wall Street Journal with prejudice

IN 30 SECONDS

• What has happened? The federal judge Darrin Gaylesfrom the Southern District of Florida based in Miamihas dismissed with prejudice the $10 billion defamation suit of donald trump against The Wall Street Journal and the rest of the codefendants.
• Who is behind? He president of the United States and his legal team, which has already announced that it will appeal; on the other side, the newspaper, Dow Jones, News Corp, Rupert Murdoch and the CEO Robert Thomson.
• What impact does it have? It closes the door to repeating the same claim and consolidates the standard of actual malice, a criterion that also conditions Spanish media and companies active in the US.

A federal judge in Miami dismisses the $10 billion lawsuit with prejudice donald trump against The Wall Street Journal.

Real malice: the bar that the president has failed to reach

The ruling, signed by the judge Darrin Gayles on Saturday, October 31, is the second time that the southern district of Florida has closed the door on the president. Gayles concludes that Trump did not prove actual malicethe standard that American jurisprudence requires of public figures: it is not enough for information to be false or harmful, it must be demonstrated that the media knew of the falsehood or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, the current malice of the Sullivan doctrine.

In the text of the resolution, the judge maintains that the president was “grasping at straws” in his attempt to find a defect in the newspaper’s work, and concludes that the amended complaint “falls short of alleging actual malice.” Dismissal with prejudice (with prejudice) prevents the same facts from being raised again: it is not a procedural pause, it is a definitive closure of that route.

From the 2003 letter to the announced appeal: the chronology of the lawsuit

The origin is in an article published on July 17, 2025. In it, The Wall Street Journal described a note of sexual content that bore the president’s name and that appeared in a 2003 album prepared for the financier’s 50th birthday. Jeffrey Epstein. Trump denied any relationship with the text: “This is not me. This is false,” he then told the newspaper.

The reaction was immediate. Trump filed his lawsuit the next day in federal court in Miami and claimed $10 billion for defamation. In April, Gayles rejected the first version of the brief, considering that the president did not come “anywhere near” to proving malice; His team returned to the fray in May with an amended lawsuit that argued that the newspaper had been reckless in failing to explain how its journalists obtained and verified the story.

The lawsuit also named News Corpto its founder Rupert Murdochto the CEO Robert Thomsonto the publisher Dow Jones and two journalists from the newspaper. The House of Representatives later subpoenaed the executors of Epstein’s estate and obtained a redacted copy of the birthday book; Ghislaine Maxwellwho assembled the album, is serving a 20-year sentence for his role in the sex trafficking ring. “President Trump will continue with his powerful lawsuit,” said a spokesperson for the legal team, which is preparing the appeal.

Dismissing with prejudice is not a procedural technicality: it is the difference between losing a lawsuit and never being able to bring it up again.

Washington Logic

The question that matters in Washington It is not whether the president lost a lawsuit, but why lawsuits have become a major political tool. Trump litigates against the press because his coalition reads it as a form of accountabilitynot as a threat to freedom of expression: for the Republican voter who supports it, the big media are part of an establishment that has been questioning its legitimacy for a decade. To sue is, in that logic, to fight the same battle in another court.

The American precedent that frames all this is from 1964. The Supreme Court ruling in the New York Times v. Sullivan case raised the bar for actual malice to protect journalistic coverage of public officials in the midst of the fight for civil rights, and since then that criterion has shielded the country’s press. There has been no shortage of voices within the Supreme Court itself that have suggested reviewing it; What this resolution demonstrates is that, for now, the bar remains where it was.

For Spain the issue is not foreign. Spanish publishing groups —Hurry, Vocento, Atresmedia, Mediaset Spain— cover American politics with correspondents in New Yorkand any information about the president enters territory where a defamation lawsuit can be filed within hours, as happened here. The Spanish regime is different: honor and one’s own image are protected via article 20 of the Constitution and the organic law of 1982, without civil juries or American-style punitive compensation.

The immediate projection is an appeal before the Eleventh Circuit, based in Atlanta, whose hearing has no public date. Meanwhile, the fronts against the BBC and The New York Times. There will come the next signal: if the courts maintain Gayles’ criteria, the judicial route loses strength as a political tool; If anyone lowers it, the map changes for all the press that reports on the United States.

Case File

• The case: A federal judge in Miami dismisses with prejudice Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over a story about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
• Key data: Resolution of October 31, 2026; lawsuit filed July 18, 2025; first rejection in April and amended letter in May; co-defendants News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, Robert Thomson, Dow Jones and two journalists.
• For Spain: The standard of actual malice conditions the media and Spanish companies active in the US, although the Spanish regime for the protection of honor does not contemplate punitive compensation.