US judge throws out Trump’s $3.8bn defamation lawsuit against Washington Post

A federal judge in Florida has thrown out Donald Trump’s $3.8bn defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post over an article that said a bank with links to the pornography industry helped fund his fledgling social media operation.

In a brief order granting summary judgment to the newspaper, Tampa district court judge Thomas Patrick Barber, a Trump appointee, said the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) had “failed to present evidence that would allow a jury to find by clear and convincing evidence” that the Post acted with actual malice, the benchmark for such an action to succeed.

Barber said a full opinion would be forthcoming, according to the website Reason, which first reported the development.

It marks the latest defeat for Trump in a series of lawsuits against media outlets that have published articles that displeased him.

In April, a different Florida judge dismissed an action against the Wall Street Journal over a story that said Trump wrote a “bawdy” letter to the disgraced late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; seven months earlier, a third Florida judge tossed a separate $15bn claim against the New York Times and book publisher Penguin, before the president filed an amended complaint a month later.

Also in April, TMTG dropped a defamation claim against the Guardian over a 2023 report that federal investigators were looking into its reported acceptance of loans from sources with ties to Russia.

The action against the Post stemmed from its 2023 report that TMTG was sourcing funds from “an obscure financial entity with connections to a Caribbean-island bank that bills itself as a top payment service for adult entertainment sites” as it built an operation that would turn into Trump’s Truth Social platform.

The Post alleged the companies did not disclose to shareholders or Securities Exchange Commission regulators that Trump Media paid a $240,000 “finder’s fee” for helping to arrange an $8m loan deal with ES Family Trust, or that the fee’s recipient was Entoro Securities, a brokerage firm linked to the chief executive of Digital World, a shell company that merged with TMTG in 2024.

Trump’s argument, rejected by Barber, was that the Post acted maliciously in reporting the story, an “egregious hit piece” according to the lawsuit, and that the newspaper had engaged in a “years-long crusade” against him.

The judge found that the absence of malice meant that the lawsuit was destined to fail, and granted summary judgment sought by the Post in a motion it filed in April.

In a statement reported by the Post on Tuesday, a spokesperson said the newspaper welcomed Barber’s ruling, which was recorded last Thursday. “We are pleased with the court’s decision and look forward to reviewing its written order upon release,” she wrote.

The Post published a correction to its original article in May.

“Discovery in the ongoing litigation has established that Trump Media didn’t pay a loan referral fee of $240,000, as was stated in the article and was based on The Post’s reporting at the time of publication,” it said. “In addition, a related mention in the article that Trump Media and its publicly traded merger partner didn’t disclose the payment to shareholders or the Securities and Exchange Commission was inaccurate because no such payment was made.”

In a statement to the Post on Monday, TMTG said the correction was a victory. “After three years, The Washington Post finally admitted its harmful story was false,” the statement said. “We believe a jury should decide whether these falsehoods were actionable and will evaluate whether to appeal last week’s ruling in due course. We will also continue to hold the media accountable.”