Judge dismisses Trump’s $10 billion defamation suit over Jeffrey Epstein birthday card story

A federal judge in Florida has tossed a revised version of President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation suit against The Wall Street Journal over a story about a birthday card he allegedly sent Jeffrey Epstein more than two decades ago.

U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles found Trump’s amended suit suffered from the same fatal flaw as his first attempt — it fell far short of the high legal bar to show the paper had published the story with “actual malice.”

“As President Trump has not plausibly alleged that each Defendant made defamatory statements with actual malice, the Amended Complaint must be dismissed. And because this is President Trump’s second attempt to allege his claims, the Court finds that dismissal with prejudice is appropriate,” the judge wrote.

Trump first sued the paper last July, shortly after the Journal published a story about a birthday book that Ghislaine Maxwell had assembled for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. The book appeared to include a card from Trump, who had been friends with Epstein around that time.

The card contained a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman with what appeared to be Trump’s first name signed in the pubic area. It included a typewritten…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business