A federal judge on April 13 dismissed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, ruling that he failed to demonstrate that the outlet acted with actual malice.

In a 17-page decision, Judge Darrin Gayles of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida found that the newspaper did not commit libel in its July 2025 article concerning a birthday letter to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that it alleged Trump signed.

Gayles said that meeting the legal standard for actual malice requires showing that a publisher either knowingly reported false information or recklessly disregarded the truth. He wrote that Trump’s complaint “comes nowhere close to this standard—quite the opposite.”

The ruling emphasized that The Wall Street Journal sought comment from Trump, the Justice Department, and the FBI before publication. Trump denied authoring the letter, the Justice Department did not respond, and the FBI declined to comment.

Addressing Trump’s claims, Gayles wrote that allegations that the defendants ignored contradictory evidence were undermined by the article itself, which included Trump’s denial. He further stated that assertions of ill will, without supporting facts, are insufficient to establish actual malice, describing the case as “conclusory and without factual support.”

Attorneys for the newspaper argued that the article’s statements were true and therefore not libelous, but Gayles declined to resolve those factual questions at this stage. He said that whether Trump authored the letter or had a personal relationship with Epstein remains a matter for further proceedings.

Gayles said Trump could file an amended version of the lawsuit by April ‌27.

To move forward, Gayles wrote, Trump must clearly show that The Wall Street Journal either knowingly published false information or had a reckless disregard for the truth.

Gayles said the original complaint relied on “formulaic” assertions of malice and fell far short of meeting the legal standard required to establish defamation for a public figure such as Trump.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said his team will refile the lawsuit on or before the deadline.

“It is not a termination, it is a suggested re-filing,” the president wrote.

In a statement, The Wall Street Journal’s parent company, Dow Jones, applauded Gayles’s move.

“We are pleased with the judge’s decision to dismiss this complaint,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email. “We stand behind the reliability, rigor and accuracy of The Wall Street Journal’s reporting.”

Trump filed the lawsuit in July 2025. The Journal’s coverage centered on an article describing a sexually suggestive letter that the paper alleged carried Trump’s signature and appeared in a 2003 album created for Epstein’s 50th birthday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X on Sept. 8, 2025, “The latest piece published by the Wall Street Journal PROVES this entire ‘Birthday Card’ story is false.”

“Tt’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it,” she said.

Leavitt said The Wall Street Journal reporter “reached out for comment at the EXACT same minute he published his story.”

Then-deputy White House chief of staff Taylor Budowich also wrote on social media on the same date as Leavitt’s post that the signature at the bottom of the letter doesn’t belong to the president.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Judge Darrin Gayles. The Epoch Times regrets the error.