Defamation

Trump's Dismissed Epstein Letter Lawsuit Is the Latest Example of His Failure To State Cognizable Claims

The president's defamation case against The Wall Street Journal fits a pattern of frivolous litigation aimed at punishing speech that irks him.

Jacob Sullum | 11.3.2026 2:50 PM

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On July 17, 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported that a 2003 album marking the 50th birthday of financier Jeffrey Epstein, who would later be implicated in state and federal sex offenses involving underage girls, included a letter from Donald Trump, a longtime friend. The very next day, Trump sued the Journal in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, saying "the supposed letter is a fake and the Defendants knew it when they chose to deliberately defame President Trump." The complaint sought compensatory and punitive damages "not less than $10 billion."

Last April, U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed that lawsuit but let Trump try again with an amended complaint. On Saturday, Gayles dismissed the lawsuit again, this time with prejudice. In both cases, Gayles concluded that Trump's lawyers had fallen far short of alleging "actual malice," a crucial element of defamation cases involving public figures. That abject failure illustrates a persistent pattern in Trump's long history of frivolous lawsuits: As far as Trump is concerned, the point is to punish people for saying things he does not like, as opposed to seeking compensation for a legally cognizable injury.

What does "actual malice" mean? Trump seems to think it means that someone published a false statement "out of hatred and ill-will"—a phrase that appears in both Trump's original complaint against the Journal and in his amended complaint, which he filed on May 27, 2026. But as Gayles explains in his order, that is not what "actual malice" means.

"To plead actual malice," Gayles notes, quoting a 2018 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit (which includes Florida), Trump "must allege facts sufficient to give rise to a reasonable inference that the false statement was made with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. This is a subjective test, focusing on whether the defendant 'actually entertained serious doubts as to the veracity of the published account, or was highly aware that the account was probably false.'"

The Supreme Court established that standard in the 1964 case New York........

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