by WorldTribune Staff, July 22, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
A Florida judge has denied a motion to dismiss the defamation lawsuit brought by Donald Trump against the Pulitzer Prize Board.
Trump sued the board for propagating "fake news" by awarding Pulitzer Prizes to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their coverage of the Trump-Russia investigation.
Florida Circuit Court Judge Robert L. Pegg on Saturday, in a 14-page ruling, denied the board's motion to dismiss.
The case focuses on the Pulitzer Board’s decision in 2022 to publicly reaffirm the awards despite repeated complaints by Trump that the articles contained numerous falsehoods and were undermined by the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year Russia investigation.
Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Saturday night:
"BREAKING NEWS! Just heard that today, during our amazing Rally in the Great State of Michigan, esteemed Florida Circuit Court Judge, Robert L. Pegg, issued a Powerful Decision totally and completely DENYING the Pulitzer Prize Board's desperate attempt to dismiss my ironclad Defamation Lawsuit against them for awarding the once respected Pulitzer Prizes to Fake News Stories about the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax by The Failing New York Times and The Washington Compost."
Trump added: "The Judge specifically stated that the Fake Stories, and the Prizes awarded them, have been debunked by several Government Investigations. He did not allow Pulitzer to hide behind the deeply outdated Times v. Sullivan case, which is from a bygone Era, before the Media went Radical and Woke, as they suffer from a terminal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome…"
In a later post, Trump noted that the Democrats' failed narratives in the complicit media are "falling apart like a rotten house of cards."
"The Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Impeachment #1, Impeachment #2, Crooked Joe Biden's civil and criminal Election Interference Witch Hunts against his Political Opponent, and all other attacks on me and our Great MAGA Movement, are falling apart like a rotten House of Cards," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!"
Judge Pegg allowed the case to move forward to discovery, where Trump's legal team can interview the Pulitzer Prize Board and investigate alleged claims that the board conducted reviews to confirm the accuracy of the disputed report of Russian collusion reporting that earned the Times and Post Pulitzer prizes, which they have refused to return though their reporting has been proven false.
