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Saying the president was \u201cgrasping at straws,\u201d a federal judge on Saturday threw out Donald Trump\u2019s $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch over a story reporting on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>.<\/p>\n U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami dismissed the suit with prejudice, ruling that the president did not prove the defendants made defamatory statements with actual malice as required by law. The ruling said the lawsuit had attempted to \u201cmanufacture\u201d flaws in the Journal\u2019s investigative reporting.<\/p>\n When a case is thrown out \u201cwith prejudice,\u201d it cannot be refiled again and the dismissal is permanent and incontrovertible.<\/p>\n The dismissal is a blow to Trump and his administration, which have both pursued adversarial relationships with news organizations during his second term. In addition to the Journal, he is embroiled in lawsuits involving the BBC, The Associated Press and \u2014 most recently \u2014 CNN, MS NOW and Politico, which are suing him for restored access<\/a> after he banished them from the White House in mid-September.<\/p>\n Trump has denounced media outlets that write things to which he objects and frequently calls them \u201cfake news\u201d and insults their journalists.<\/p>\n The White House did not immediately react publicly to Saturday’s dismissal or respond to an AP request for comment. <\/p>\n The lawsuit against the Journal was over a story it published last year describing a sexually suggestive letter and drawing that the paper said bore Trump\u2019s name and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein\u2019s 50th birthday. <\/p>\n The letter was reportedly collected by disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a> as part of a birthday album for Epstein years before he was first arrested in 2006 and subsequently had a falling-out with Trump.<\/p>\n The letter bearing Trump\u2019s name includes text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman and ends with, \u201cHappy Birthday \u2014 and may every day be another wonderful secret,\u201d according to the newspaper.<\/p>\n Trump denied writing it and called the story \u201cfalse, malicious, and defamatory.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, accused the paper and its reporters of having \u201cknowingly and recklessly\u201d published \u201cnumerous false, defamatory, and disparaging statements,\u201d which, it alleged, caused \u201coverwhelming financial and reputational harm\u201d to the president. <\/p>\n Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.<\/p>\n