Trump Sues Pulitzer Prize Board for Defamation Over 2018 Award to NYT, WaPo for Russiagate Reporting: ‘Disinformation’
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Donald Trump is suing the Pulitzer Prize Board, alleging the committee defamed him by refusing to retract prizes awarded to the Washington Post and New York Times for reporting about the Russiagate scandal.
In 2018, the newspapers shared an award for their “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign.”
Former special counsel Robert Mueller’s lengthy investigation found no proof Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the election.
In a civil complaint filed Tuesday in Florida and viewed by Fox News, Trump alleged the Pulitzer board’s refusal to retract the shared award between the newspapers equates to defamation.
The board previously put out a statement that claimed “no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.”
In Trump’s lawsuit, the statement is referred to as “demonstrably false.” Fox News’s Brian Flood reported:
The complaint made a series of points indicating why it feels the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories are unworthy of the honor, including Special Counsel Robert Mueller failing to find evidence of collusion, and a DOJ Inspector General Report outlining malfeasance by federal investigators.
Trump’s team also feels the actions of multiple individuals embroiled in the discredited Christopher Steele dossier, such as Michael Sussmann, are evidence to support the claim that the Times and Post aren’t worthy of journalism awards for the Russian collusion narrative.
One portion of the complaint argued it is “immaterial” if reporters who covered the Russian collusion story for the newspapers “understood at the time they were propagating political disinformation…”
The suit added, “What matters instead is the Defendants’ conduct, particularly when many of the key assertions and premises of the Russia Collusion Hoax that permeated the Awarded Articles had been revealed by the Mueller Report and congressional investigations as false after the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting had been awarded.”
According to Flood, Trump will seek damages in an amount to be “proven at trial.” Trump had previously threatened to sue the Pulitzer board.
Read Flood’s reporting in its entirety here.
