President Donald Trump scored yet another legal victory on Wednesday when a Florida appellate court unanimously affirmed the trial court order denying the Pulitzer Prize defendants’ motions to dismiss the president’s lawsuit.
Trump filed a defamation lawsuit in 2022 against the Pulitzer Prize Board over the 2018 National Reporting prizes given to the New York Times and Washington Post for coverage of the “now-debunked theory” of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election. The appellate opinion found that the trial court does have jurisdiction over the out-of-state defendants, and that the statement at the heart of this case is actionable.
“Today’s ruling is an unequivocal victory for President Trump in his pursuit of justice against the Pulitzer Prize board members for their dishonest and defamatory conduct. President Trump is committed to holding those who traffic in fake news, lies and smears to account and he looks forward to seeing his powerful cases through to a just conclusion,” Quincy Bird, attorney for President Trump, told Fox News Digital.
TRUMP SCORES BIG LEGAL WIN AGAINST PULITZER PRIZE BOARD MEMBERS AS LAWSUIT MOVES TO DISCOVERY
President Trump filed a defamation lawsuit in 2022 against the Pulitzer Prize Board over the 2018 National Reporting prizes given to the New York Times and Washington Post for coverage of the “now-debunked theory” of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. (Photo illustration)
Judge Ed Artau wrote a lengthy concurrence in which he described the “now-debunked allegations that [Trump] colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 presidential election,” and agreed with the unanimous opinion of the court.
“As noted in the President’s complaint, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Attorney General William Barr, the House of Representatives’ Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the United States Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence all concluded ‘there was no evidence of collusion between President Trump, the Trump Campaign, and Russia.’ In other words, as the President asserts, ‘[t]he Russia Collusion Hoax was dead, at least until Defendants [as members of the Pulitzer Prize board] attempted to resurrect it’ by conspiring to publish a defamatory statement falsely implying that the President colluded with the Russians,” Judge Artau ruled in a filing obtained by Fox News Digital.
“I join the unanimous majority opinion because I agree that Florida’s long-arm statute and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause allow for the exercise of personal jurisdiction over the non-resident defendants for their alleged roles in conspiring to issue the defamatory statement standing by the debunked allegations that the President colluded with the Russians,” the judge continued. “But I write separately to address the merits of the President’s defamation and conspiracy claims because the nonresident defendants challenge them here by arguing that they are not actionable under Florida’s long-arm statute. Thus, the merits of the President’s claims are crucial to our jurisdictional analysis and will be addressed in this opinion.”
Judge Artau added that “the trial court correctly concluded that it had personal jurisdiction over the non-resident defendants because the President satisfied his twofold burden to (1) bring the action under Florida’s longarm statute (statutory prong), and (2) establish that the non-resident defendants had sufficient minimum contacts with Florida under the conspiracy theory of jurisdiction (constitutional prong).”
The judge said the defendants “dispute the merits of the President’s claims by arguing that the statement at issue is not actionable under the long-arm statute because it constitutes pure opinion, rather than a defamatory statement of fact or mixed opinion,” but must also “argue that even if the statement was not one of pure opinion, it did not create a false impression about the President.”
Judge Artau explained that for a statement to be actionable in defamation “it must be one of fact or mixed opinion rather than simply a statement of pure opinion.”
TRUMP FILES DEFAMATION SUIT AGAINST MEMBERS OF PULITZER PRIZE BOARD FOR DEFENDING ‘DEBUNKED’ RUSSIAGATE HONORS
President Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against members of the Pulitzer Prize board after it rewarded The New York Times and The Washington Post in 2018 for their Russiagate coverage. (Donald Trump 2024 campaign)
“The statement here was actionable as one of fact because it detailed both the procedure the Pulitzer Prize board members followed to conclude that they would not rescind the 2018 Pulitzer Prizes in National Reporting and the reasoning for not rescinding the awards,” he wrote.
“The board members vouched for the truth of reporting that had been debunked by all credible sources charged with investigating the false claim that the President colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 presidential election, including Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Attorney General William Barr, the House of Representatives’ Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the United States Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence,” Judge Artau added. “Therefore, because the statement at issue was one of fact or mixed opinion, and constitutes a claim for defamation by implication, Florida’s long-arm statute allows for the exercise of jurisdiction.”
The judge noted that Florida law recognizes the conspiracy theory of jurisdiction.
“As the trial court correctly concluded after considering the evidence submitted, the President met his burden to prove that jurisdiction could be exercised over the non-resident defendants,” he wrote.
Judge Artau suggested that the Supreme Court revisit whether the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan ruling, which limits when public figures can sue for defamation, “should continue to be the law of the land despite historical evidence showing it does not comport with the original understanding of the First Amendment.”
“The President has met his burden of establishing jurisdiction to proceed with his asserted claims that the non-resident defendants acted with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth,” Judge Artau wrote. Therefore, the trial court correctly denied the non-resident defendants’ motion to dismiss the President’s claims over the asserted publication of defamatory ‘FAKE NEWS.’”
PULITZER PRIZES STAND BY 2018 RUSSIAGATE HONORS TO NY TIMES, WAPO AFTER SCATHING LETTER FROM TRUMP’S TEAM
The New York Times and The Washington Post spearheaded the narrative that President Trump had colluded with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 election. (REUTERS/Jorge Silva)
The lawsuit states that a “demonstrably false connection was and remains the stated basis” for the coverage that received the prestigious award.
The staff of the Times and Post shared the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for “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, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration,” according to the Pulitzer website.
“A large swath of Americans had a tremendous misunderstanding of the truth at the time the Times’ and the Post’s propagation of the Russia Collusion Hoax dominated the media,” the complaint states. “Remarkably, they were rewarded for lying to the American public.”
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 SCOLDS PULITZER PRIZE BOARD FOR STANDING BY 2018 RUSSIAGATE HONORS: ‘BIGGEST REPORTING FAILURE’
The Pulitzer Prize Board provided Fox News Digital with the following statement: “This lawsuit is about intimidation of the press and those who support it—and we will not be intimidated. The Pulitzer Board will continue to recognize the accomplishments of journalists, writers, artists and composers at the highest level. We look forward to continuing our defense of journalism.”
Trump’s team previously called for “a full and fair correction, apology, or retraction” to be issued, in addition to the 2018 prizes being rescinded, but the Pulitzer Prize Board declared the awards would stand.
“The Pulitzer Prize Board has an established, formal process by which complaints against winning entries are carefully reviewed. In the last three years, the Pulitzer Board has received inquiries, including from former President Donald Trump, about submissions from The New York Times and The Washington Post on Russian interference in the U.S. election and its connections to the Trump campaign–submissions that jointly won the 2018 National Reporting prize,” the Pulitzer Prize Board previously wrote.
This latest legal victory comes on the heels of ABC News’ $15 million settlement and Meta’s $25 million settlement with Trump in recent weeks. CBS News’ parent company Paramount is reportedly mulling its own settlement to end the network’s high-stakes legal battle against Trump. Trump also has filed a lawsuit against The Des Moines Register and veteran pollster Ann Selzer.
The case against the Pulitzer board members is one of the many legal fronts, criminal and civil, being coordinated by Trump’s Senior Counsel Boris Epshteyn.
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Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
