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Judge Tosses Trump's $10 Billion Wall Street Journal-Murdoch Suit Over Epstein Reporting
The fight seemingly isn't over, with a spokesperson for the president pledging that he will "refile this powerhouse lawsuit," which critics have called part of his war on free speech.
Apr 13, 2026
A Florida-based federal judge on Monday dismissed President Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its reporting on a "bawdy" birthday letter the Republican allegedly gave to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump denies writing the letter or drawing the outline of a naked woman around the text. He sued the journalists behind the July report—Joseph Palazzolo and Khadeeja Safdar—and the newspaper, plus its parent company News Corp, chief executive Robert Thomson, and founder Rupert Murdoch.
The US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subsequently subpoenaed the Epstein estate for all materials that now-imprisoned co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly compiled for the dead financier's birthday book, including the letter attributed to Trump—and in September, the panel published those documents online.
US District Judge Darrin P. Gayles, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, found on Monday that Trump's "complaint fails to adequately allege actual malice." However, Gayles also gave Trump the opportunity to amend his filing within the next two weeks.
While The Wall Street Journal did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment, a spokesperson for Trump's legal team said in a statement that the president intends to continue the case.
"President Trump will follow Judge Gayles' ruling and guidance to refile this powerhouse lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and all of the other defendants," the spokesperson said. "The president will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in Fake News to mislead the American People."
CNN noted that despite the legal battle, "the 95-year-old Murdoch has maintained a cozy if complicated relationship with the president, including multiple meetings at the White House in recent months."
The suit over the birthday letter to Epstein—whom Trump was publicly friends with in the 1980s and '90s until a reported falling out in the early 2000s—is just part of a sweeping effort by the president and his political enablers "to undermine and chill the most basic freedoms protected under the First Amendment," as the advocacy group Free Press put it in a December analysis.
In addition to the Journal case, examples included Trump's legal battles with the BBC and The New York Times, the White House taking control of the presidential press pool, the administration blocking The Associated Press from the Oval Office over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, ABC temporarily suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel following comments from Trump's Federal Communications Commission chair, and the Pentagon's legally contested media policy.
Such attacks continue. Last month, as the costs of his unconstitutional war on Iran mounted, Trump floated "treason" charges against media outlets that he accused of reporting false information about the conflict.
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Trump Threatens to Jail Journalists Who Received Leak About US Pilot Downed in Iran
“We think we’ll be able to find it out because we’re going to go to the media company that released it and we’re going to say: ‘National security—give it up or go to jail,'" the president said.
Apr 06, 2026
President Donald Trump vowed Monday to find the "leaker" who disclosed that US forces could not locate the second pilot stranded in Iran after their F-15 fighter jet was shot down, threatening to jail unnamed journalists who received the information if they do not reveal its source.
Trump claimed that Iranian authorities did not know that a second pilot of the downed two-seat warplane was missing until after the news report, which made the US rescue mission "much more difficult."
“We’re looking very hard to find that leaker,” Trump said. “We think we’ll be able to find it out because we’re going to go to the media company that released it and we’re going to say: ‘National security—give it up or go to jail.'”
Trump: "They didn't know there was somebody missing until this leaker gave the information. Whoever it was, we think we'll be able to find out, because we're gonna go to the media company that released it and we're gonna say, 'National security. Give it up or go to jail.'"
[image or embed]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 6, 2026 at 10:27 AM
“The country, Iran, put out a major notice... offering a very big award for anybody that captures the pilot," Trump continued. "We have to find that leaker, because that’s a sick person. Probably didn’t realize the extent of how bad it was."
"We’re going to find out," he added. "It’s national security, and the person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say.”
While the president did not say which "media company" he was talking about, the first widely cited reporting about the missing second pilot was broadcast Friday by CNN, CBS News, and The New York Times.
Israel journalist Amit Segal—who has close high-level links to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—claimed Monday on his Telegram channel that he was the first to publish information on the second pilot.
"We are about to see Trump’s promise to find and imprison whoever leaked the info about the second pilot vanish into the ether," US investigative journalist Ryan Grim said on social media Monday in response to Segal's post.
Both pilots were successfully rescued. Some critics mocked Trump for presuming that Iranians would not know that the two-seat F-15 is crewed by multiple pilots.
Since early in his first administration, Trump has discussed jailing journalists and political foes who leak or refuse to say who disclosed information. The president has also long denigrated journalists as the "fake news media" and the "enemy of the people," sowing distrust of an entire profession that culminated in physical attacks on reporters during the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
Trump's threat comes as the president said he is "considering blowing everything up” in Iran if the country's leaders don't reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night. This, after Trump said during a nationally televised address last week that he would bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages" if the vital waterway is not reopened.
Responding to the president's remarks, Freedom of the Press Foundation advocacy chief Seth Stern said that “Donald Trump has long harbored bizarre fantasies about having journalists arrested and even sexually assaulted in prison for refusing to burn their sources."
"But journalists don’t work for the government and their right to publish government leaks is protected by the First Amendment which, despite Trump’s efforts, remains the law of the land," he continued. "It does not disappear whenever the words 'national security' are uttered. To the extent that the government is allowed to withhold information, it’s up to the government to keep its secrets, not journalists."
“Confidential sources are the lifeblood of investigative journalism," Stern contended. "Sources who come forward at great personal risk won’t do so if they don’t trust that their identities won’t be revealed, as Trump knows well from his days impersonating publicists to brag about himself to reporters."
"Some of the most important news stories in American history have come from confidential sources, including stories that have brought down corrupt presidents," he added. "That’s why Trump is so obsessed with leaks. It has nothing to do with national security."
Update: This article has been updated with reaction from Freedom of the Press Foundation advocacy chief Seth Stern.
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UN Human Rights Chief Calls Out Trump FCC for Threatening Media Over Iran War Coverage
"Full respect for media independence and freedoms is all the more important in such circumstances, as fundamental to holding governments to public account," said Volker Türk.
Apr 01, 2026
The United Nations' top human rights official on Tuesday accused a Trump administration agency of attempting to "limit media freedom" by publicly threatening outlets engaged in critical coverage of the Iran war.
Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, specifically called out the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over its chairman's threat last month to pull the broadcast licenses of broadcasters accused by the administration of "news distortions." FCC Chair Brendan Carr issued the threat in response to a March 14 tirade by US President Donald Trump, who baselessly condemned The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets for publishing "intentionally misleading" war coverage.
Türk's mention of the FCC came at the tail-end of a statement decrying the "deepening clampdown on freedom of expression" amid the US-Israeli war on Iran. The UN official pointed to mass arbitrary detentions in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, and Iran, as well as crackdowns on free assembly.
"There have also been attempts to limit media freedom, such as restrictions imposed by Israeli military censorship authorities, and a threat by the US Federal Communications Commission to revoke broadcast licenses for coverage deemed critical of the war," said Türk. "Full respect for media independence and freedoms is all the more important in such circumstances, as fundamental to holding governments to public account. The exercise of such rights must be protected, not threatened."
A day after the FCC chief threatened broadcasters, Trump floated "treason" charges against media outlets he accused of spreading "false information"—something the president does constantly.
Tom Jones, senior media writer at Poynter, wrote earlier this week that "perhaps the most dangerous figure in Trump’s aggression against the press is Brendan Carr," who "made his feelings abundantly clear at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas on Friday."
"He bragged about the damage Trump has done to the media," Jones wrote. "Carr told an approving crowd, 'Look at the results so far. PBS, defunded. NPR, defunded. Joy Reid, gone from MSNBC. Sleepy-eyes Chuck Todd, gone. Jim Acosta, gone. John Dickerson, gone. Stephen Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership, and soon enough, CNN is going to have new ownership as well.'"
"Then," Jones added, "he chillingly said, 'So, we’re not at the point yet where we’re raising the mission accomplished flag, but President Trump is taking on the fake news media, and President Trump is winning.'"
Carr's attack on broadcasters over their Iran war coverage led Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to reiterate his call for the FCC chair's resignation. In a letter to Carr, Markey wrote that the chairman's threat demonstrated his "continued effort to turn the FCC into Trump’s personal speech police."
Carr's threat to pull media outlets' broadcast licenses "follows that same logic but extends it to the coverage of an active military conflict, where the chilling effect on journalists and the damage to the public’s right to know are most severe."
Other Trump administration officials, most notably Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, have vocally complained about press coverage of the illegal Iran war, describing American media outlets as insufficiently "patriotic."
Under Hegseth's leadership, the Pentagon recently ramped up its crackdown on journalists' access to the department following a court ruling against earlier press restrictions. As part of the new crackdown, the Pentagon closed a press area known as Correspondents' Corridor and moved reporters to an unfinished annex in a separate building.
“Closing the Correspondents’ Corridor and forcing escorted access undermines independent reporting at the Pentagon at a moment when the public needs clear, unfiltered information about the US military," said Mark Schoeff Jr., president of the National Press Club. "Independent reporting on the US military is not optional. It is essential to accountability, transparency, and public trust. Any policy that curtails that access should concern everyone who values a free and informed society.”
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