A federal judge on Saturday dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought by Donald Trump against a major newspaper and media mogul Rupert Murdoch regarding coverage of the former president’s connections to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The ruling marks the second time this year that federal courts have rejected legal attempts by Trump to sue the publication over reporting concerning his relationship with Epstein. In both instances, judges determined that the plaintiff failed to meet the demanding legal threshold established by the landmark 1964 Supreme Court ruling New York Times v. Sullivan, which governs defamation claims involving public figures.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles of the Southern District of Florida issued a 20-page decision on Saturday afternoon concluding that Trump did not establish that the publication acted with “actual malice”—meaning knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth—when reporting on his ties to Epstein. Gayles dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice, barring Trump from refiling the action in that court.
Trump initially filed the lawsuit in July 2025, seeking $20 billion in damages. The legal dispute centered on an article that described a birthday letter bearing Trump’s name and containing bawdy language that was reportedly given to Epstein. Trump’s legal team insisted the document was fabricated. Although Gayles dismissed the initial complaint last April, he permitted Trump to file an amended version, which was the filing rejected in Saturday’s ruling.
In his opinion, Gayles criticized the legal sufficiency of the plaintiff’s arguments regarding the paper’s state of mind. “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 wrote.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment following the release of the decision.
