Trump's WSJ, Rupert Murdoch Defamation Suit Gets Obama Judge
Source: Newsweek
Obama-appointee Judge Darrin P. Gayles has been assigned to President Donald Trump's defamation suit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch over the publication's story about an alleged birthday drawing for Jeffrey Epstein.
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Gayles serves on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, where Trump's lawsuit was filed.
He was appointed to the court by former President Barack Obama in 2014, becoming the first openly gay African-American man to serve on the federal bench.
Trump has often accused the judiciary of political bias against him, sharply criticizing judges appointed by Democratic presidents who do not rule in his favor in cases.
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Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-wsj-lawsuit-murdoch-court-obama-judge-2101712
How I first heard about this:
HAHAHAHA Donald filed his B lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal in the Southern District of Florida hoping to get Judge Cannon and he got OBAMA APPOINTEE Darrin Gayles instead HAHAHAHA
— Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.com) 2025-07-21T13:43:17.678Z
= new reply since forum marked as read
openly gay, African-American man. Trifecta!
Hey Don...
Federal judges - with very few exceptions - know what they're doing and are not corrupted by politics.
Karma is a motherfucking b*tch, eh Donnie?
Suck on that popsicle while you are at it! 
LOL
This is the same judge who dismissed trump's lawsuit against Michael Cohen
Judge presiding over Trump’s Wall Street Journal lawsuit has seen this movie before
— Lauren Ashley Davis (@laurenmeidasa.bsky.social) 2025-07-21T17:49:19.423Z
The Obama appointee made history as the first openly gay Black man appointed to the federal bench.
www.politico.com/news/2025/07...
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/21/wall-street-lawsuit-judge-donald-trump-00465363
That’s because Gayles, a 2014 appointee of Barack Obama, had another brush with a litigious Trump in 2023, when the then-former president sought to punish his onetime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.
Trump sued Cohen in April 2023 seeking a $500 million payout for claims that Cohen violated his attorney-client relationship with Trump and enriched himself off their relationship. Six months later, Trump abandoned the lawsuit, just before Cohen’s lawyers were set to question him under oath.
Trump’s new lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and owner Rupert Murdoch seeks an even more audacious sum: $20 billion. Trump says the newspaper defamed him by reporting last week that Trump may have sent Epstein a suggestive birthday card more than two decades ago. Trump filed the lawsuit on Friday, and Gayles was assigned to preside over the case on Monday.
But as with the Cohen case, there’s an open question of whether Trump’s new lawsuit is more of a political stunt than a serious attempt to litigate the issue. If Trump pursues the case, he would open himself up to answering questions under oath about his connection to the disgraced financier who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
