Former President Trump filed a libel suit on Tuesday against the Pulitzer Prize board for the 2018 national reporting award given to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their coverage of the now-debunked theories about the alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The 2024 presidential hopeful filed the complaint in state court Tuesday in Okeechobee County, Fla., and sought more than $30,000 in damages as restitution against the Pulitzer Prize Board for awarding 2018 Pulitzer prizes to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their coverage of the Trump campaign, the Steele dossier and Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump had written to Pulitzer administrator Marjorie Miller earlier this month calling for the Pulitzer Prize Board to withdraw its award for the 2018 Russia investigations coverage, and threatened legal action.
The Pulitzer Prize board revealed it had conducted two investigations into the 2018 prize awarded for national reporting, pointing out that Trump was not the only one making noises about the matter.
Trump threatened to sue months after the board issued what he alleged was a libelous statement that announced it had concluded its two separate reviews requested by Trump and others over the Pulitzers awarded to stories on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The defamation lawsuit makes a number of points that suggest why the Trump team believes the Pulitzer-winning stories were not worthy of the honor, including the fact that special counsel Robert Mueller failed to uncover evidence of collusion, and that the Justice Department inspector general’s report described misconduct by federal investigators.
A defamation lawsuit, alleging special counsel Mueller failed to uncover evidence of collusion, and a report from a DOJ Inspector General that identified wrongdoing on the part of government investigators.
Trump’s suit, filed in Okeechobee County, Fla., Tuesday, alleges a connection that is demonstrably false was, and remains, the foundation for award-winning newspaper coverage, Fox News reported.
