A federal judge on Monday tossed President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal for first revealing a sexually suggestive letter bearing his signature that was gifted to Jeffrey Epstein, but the president now has two weeks to file a new suit.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles concluded that The Wall Street Journal reporters acted well within the protections afforded by the Constitution’s First Amendment. Defamation would require proving that journalists acted with “malice” and “reckless disregard” for the truth, but the evidence actually showed the reverse, the judge said.
“The complaint comes nowhere close to this standard. Quite the opposite … the complaint and article confirm that defendants attempted to investigate,” Gayles wrote, noting that the journalists contacted Trump and law enforcement officials and included the president’s denials in their news story.