World · World News Bureau
Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against Wall Street Journal dismissed
A U.S. judge has permanently dismissed former President Donald Trump's $10 billion defamation case against the Wall Street Journal, finding he failed to meet the legal threshold required to prove actual malice in the publication's reporting.
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The ruling marks another legal setback for Trump in his efforts to challenge media coverage. The judge determined that Trump did not successfully demonstrate that the Wall Street Journal acted with deliberate falsehood or reckless disregard for the truth, a requirement under U.S. defamation law for public figures.
Trump had filed the massive lawsuit in response to the newspaper's coverage involving his connections to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted financier who died in jail in 2019. The former president contested the accuracy and framing of the reporting, contending the Journal had damaged his reputation.
The dismissal represents a significant hurdle for Trump's broader litigation strategy against media organizations he has criticized. Defamation cases brought by public figures face a notably high bar under the Supreme Court's landmark 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision, which established protections for press freedom.
Trump has pursued multiple legal actions against news outlets over the past several years, with mixed results. The permanent nature of this dismissal means the case cannot be refiled on the same grounds.