Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize board alleging defamation due to a statement the organization made after a review of previous defamation claims made by him, The Hill reports.
Trump previously requested an independent review of awards given to stories about Russian election interference. He also requested that the board revoke the 2018 national reporting awards given to The New York Times and The Washington Post, but that was rejected after the board said the reviews determined that "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."
Fox News first reported that Trump filed a lawsuit in Okeechobee County, Florida, in which he claims that the board acted with actual malice when releasing the statement, calling it a targeted attack on his reputation.
"On the facts known to Defendants at the time these reviews were allegedly conducted, it would have been impossible that a single objective, thorough and independent review would have reached such a conclusion, much less two," the suit states. "Defendants knew this and published the Pulitzer Statement anyway."
The Hill contacted the Times, the Post, and the Pulitzer board for comment.
"The mission and responsibility of The New York Times is to report thoroughly and impartially on matters of newsworthy importance," New York Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander told the Hill. "The foreign manipulation of the 2016 elections was both consequential and unprecedented in United States history.
"Our journalists thoroughly pursued credible claims, fact-checked, edited and ultimately produced groundbreaking journalism that was proven true time and again."
The Post and the Pulitzer board did not respond before time of publication.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.