Judge rules complaint fails to outline malice after Trump argued lewd drawing allegedly sent to Epstein at heart of story was fake
A Florida judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed last summer by Donald Trump over a Wall Street Journal report that he had sent a “bawdy” letter to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, though the judge has given the US president two weeks to refile the case.
Trump, who has had a habit of suing media companies inside and outside the White House, had argued that a lewd drawing at the heart of the story was fake. The lawsuit was especially notable because one of the defendants was Rupert Murdoch, one of Trump’s top media allies, whose News Corporation media empire owns the Journal.
Trump had called Murdoch personally to try to prevent publication of the 17 July, 2025 story, titled “Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump.”
The Journal did not originally publish the image, though it was released by the House oversight committee in September after it was provided by Epstein’s estate.
