UPDATED: A federal judge dismissed Donald Trump\u2019s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch and others, ruling that the president\u2019s claim \u201ccomes nowhere close\u201d to adequately alleging actual malice.<\/p>\n
As definitive as his ruling was, U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles will allow the president to file an amended complaint.<\/p>\n
More from Deadline<\/p>\n
He wrote,<\/a> \u201cThe lawsuit raises many questions of fact and law about the publication\u2019s account of events, journalistic integrity, and the First Amendment\u2019s protection of sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. However, most of those questions are for another day.\u201d<\/p>\n Last summer, the\u00a0Journal\u00a0reported on\u00a0a letter in Trump\u2019s name that was included in an album given to\u00a0Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>\u00a0for his 50th birthday in 2003. The letter, the\u00a0Journal\u00a0reported, \u201ccontains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker,\u201d adding that a \u201cpair of small arcs denotes the woman\u2019s breasts, and the future president\u2019s signature is a squiggly \u2018Donald\u2019 below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump sued, alleging that the letter was \u201cfake.\u201d Trump denied to the\u00a0Journal\u00a0that he wrote the letter and threatened to sue. He also has said that he spoke to Murdoch beforehand, and the\u00a0media<\/a>\u00a0mogul told him he would \u201ctake care of it.\u201d<\/p>\n But in September, the House Oversight Committee released documents that included a letter matching the Journal\u2018s description.<\/p>\n In his opinion, the judge wrote, \u201cWhile the produced documents certainly appear identical to Yet in ruling that Trump failed to make a claim of actual malice, the judge noted that the Journal contacted Trump before running the story, as well as DOJ and FBI officials, confirming that the reporters attempted to investigate.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump\u2019s conclusory allegation that [The Journal] had contradictory evidence and failed to investigate is rebutted by the article and is insufficient to establish actual malice,\u201d Gayles wrote.<\/p>\n Trump has filed a blizzard of lawsuits against media outlets, but a number of them, including against CNN and The New York Times, have been dismissed. The Journal sought to collect attorneys fees and costs from Trump, but Gayles declined to issue such an order, citing the possibility that the president\u2019s lawyers would file an amended complaint.<\/p>\n A spokesman for Trump\u2019s legal team said, \u201cPresident Trump will follow Judge Gayles\u2019s ruling and guidance to refile this powerhouse lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other Defendants. The President will continue to hold\u00a0accountable those who traffic in Fake News to mislead the American People.\u201d<\/p>\n A Dow Jones spokesperson said, \u201cWe are pleased with the judge\u2019s decision to dismiss this complaint. We stand behind the reliability, rigor and accuracy of The Wall Street Journal\u2019s reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly after the judge\u2019s decision, the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association announced its winners to be honored at next week\u2019s annual dinner. Among the honorees: The Journal and the reporting team for the Trump-Epstein piece, headlined, \u201cJeffrey Epstein\u2019s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Best of Deadline<\/p>\n Sign up for Deadline’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPDATED: A federal judge dismissed Donald Trump\u2019s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27343,6078,27342,10288,12,664,10,11,17240,2857,625],"class_list":{"0":"post-65170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-donald-trump","8":"tag-actual-malice","9":"tag-amended-complaint","10":"tag-darrin-p-gayles","11":"tag-defamation-lawsuit","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","14":"tag-potus","15":"tag-president-of-the-united-states","16":"tag-rupert-murdoch","17":"tag-the-journal","18":"tag-wall-street-journal"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116551648814777478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
the album and Letter referenced in the Article, the Court cannot, simply by taking judicial notice,
find that they are the same, particularly where President Trump disputes their accuracy. This is a factual dispute that the court cannot resolve at this stage of the litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump.\u201d Trump plans to attend the dinner, for the first time as president.<\/p>\n