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A multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit by President Trump against The Wall Street Journal over a story reporting his ties to a birthday book for Jeffrey Epstein has been thrown out.
In a 20-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami dismissed the suit with prejudice on Saturday, ruling that Mr. Trump did not prove the defendants made defamatory statements with actual malice.
He said the lawsuit was “grasping at straws” as it attempted to “manufacture” flaws in the WSJ’s investigative reporting.
Actual malice requires that plaintiffs prove that statements made about a public figure were published with the knowledge that they were false, or with disregard for whether they are true or not.
When a case is thrown out “with prejudice,” it cannot be refiled again, and the dismissal is permanent and incontrovertible.
“President Trump will continue to press forward in his powerhouse lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other defendants,” a spokesperson for Mr. Trump’s legal team told CBS News in a statement. “The President will continue to hold those who mislead the American People with Fake News and smears accountable for their actions.”
A source familiar with Mr. Trump’s legal strategy said that the decision will likely be appealed.
The lawsuit was over a story the WSJ published last year describing a sexually suggestive letter that the paper said bore Mr. Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
The president dismissed the story as “FAKE” and filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the paper, its parent company News Corp, the company’s CEO, the reporters who wrote the story and Rupert Murdoch, News Corp’s chairman emeritus.
House lawmakers later subpoenaed and obtained a redacted version of the birthday book from Epstein’s estate, which included the letter at the center of Mr. Trump’s lawsuit. Then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “It’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it.”
In April, Gayles dismissed the lawsuit, saying the president’s legal team failed to clear the legal bar needed to establish their claim. He ruled that the president came “nowhere close” to showing the paper acted with “actual malice” toward him, the standard for bringing a defamation suit as a public figure.
Mr. Trump’s legal team refiled the lawsuit.
