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Pulitzer Out-Trumps Trump [1]

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Date: 2025-01-29

Maybe you remember the story, or maybe you don't. In 2018, Pulitzer awarded the prize to the New York Times and The Washington Post for "National Reporting" for their stories on Russian interference in the 2016 election and its connections with Trump's campaign.

This did not sit well with Donald Trump. He decided in 2022 to sue the Pulitzer Board for their decision claiming that their award was defamation of his character.

Trump sued the New York Times in 2020 for the opinion piece that detailed the Russian involvement and Trump's campaign in the 2016 election. The title of the piece was "The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo." The subheading was, "The campaign and the Kremlin had an overreaching deal; help beat Hillary Clinton for a new pro-Russian policy."

Trump claimed that it was written to intentionally damage his reputation. That case didn't work out for Donald. It was dismissed in March of 2021 by a Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice.

So, of course, he also sued the Washington Post in March of 2020 for basically the same cause. The headline for this one was, "Trump just invited another Russian attack. Mitch McConnell is making one more likely." That case was also dismissed, this time by a federal judge, in February of 2023.

Trump had already lost two cases, so he moved on with the only one left, which was against the Pulitzer Prize Board. The logic behind that defamation case was that the board and staff conspired to publish a defamatory statement in 2022 affirming the factual nature of the New York Times' and Washington Post's articles in awarding the prize.

In an ironic twist, the Pulitzer Board says that because Trump is the President, the case can not proceed.

They pointed to a Delaware case against him and his social media company, where he said, "any compulsory process by the States directly against the sitting President risks interference with the Executive Branch in violation of federal supremacy." Pulitzer's board argued, "This case creates the same constitutional conflicts."

In that Delaware case, Trump's lawyers gave the excuse that, "common sense favors a stay of this case until the end of the president's term," so that, "President Trump can devote his time and energies to America's problems."

The board even says that the stay benefits Trump, because the "prize-winning articles concern... and discovery will thus need to probe... Plaintiff's official actions during his first term."

It's too funny that his lawyers own logic have left him with no grounds to stand on in other cases, when he argues to go ahead with this one.

Failing to pause the case, would "open the floodgates to any number of other actions against him in state courts across the country as he serves out his term in office."

Trump has for years demanded that the Pulitzer board rescind the prizes given to the New York Times and the Washington Post. He based that on his complete exoneration by the Mueller report. We all know that he wasn't. Specifically, there were 10 instances of an obstruction of justice that the report laid out. It was only Bill Barr's ridiculous four page memo that sidetracked everybody about the actual contents of the Mueller report.

The Pulitzer board commissioned two independent examinations of how the awards were determined, in a statement in 2022 they said, "No passages or headlines, contensions or assertions in any of the award-winning submissions were discredited by the facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes."

It was that statement that ticked off Trump so much that he filed the defamation lawsuit in Florida because one of the board members was a Florida resident.

Trump's argument against a lawsuit from a contestant on The Apprentice used the same logic about a suit against a sitting president. Trump's lawyers contended that it would "disrupt and impair" Trump's "ability to discharge his Article II responsibilities."

Trump is trying to have it both ways. Arguing that a suit against him takes him away from his duties and impairs them. But at the same time he wants to prosecute lawsuits against others. How can that not also interfere and impair his ability to conduct his duties? For that matter, doesn't all the time he spends golfing interfere with his duties?

Then the Pulitzer board's lawyers fired their last salvo.

"According to Plaintiff, the appropriate answer to these constitutional concerns is to postpone such a state case until the president is no longer in office."

"Defendants agree. To avoid such constitutional conflicts, the court should stay this case until Plaintiff's term in office has concluded."

The Pulitzer boards lawyers also brought up the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, which states that the Constitution and federal laws take precedence over conflicting state laws.

The judge handling the case will most likely conduct a hearing about the motion in coming weeks.

In the meantime, maybe Trump's lawyers will figure out that they put their client in jeopardy by continuing the lawsuit against Pulitzer. Any smart lawyer would tell him that. But Trump may be just too thick headed to understand. He probably will think that being president protects him both ways, and it can't.

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