Trump slams media saying 'a Pulitzer Prize is worthless'
President Donald Trump joins Sean Hannity to discuss his relationship with the media and the 2020 race.
The Pulitzer Prize Board announced on Monday that it stands by its 2018 National Reporting prizes given to The New York Times and Washington Post for coverage of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia after a fiery letter from the former president’s legal team that called for the committee to "correct the record and promote journalistic fairness and integrity."
"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 wrote.
"These inquiries prompted the Pulitzer Board to commission two independent reviews of the work submitted by those organizations to our National Reporting competition. Both reviews were conducted by individuals with no connection to the institutions whose work was under examination, nor any connection to each other. The separate reviews converged in their conclusions: 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," the board continued. "The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes in National Reporting stand."
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The Pulitzer Prize Board announced on Monday that it stands by its 2018 National Reporting prizes given to The New York Times and Washington Post for coverage of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. (Photo illustration)
The Pulitzer Prize Board’s made no mention of a scathing, 11-page July 5 letter sent from Trump’s attorneys John P. Rowley III and John S. Irving that called for the board to revoke the awards.
The letter, which has been obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, blasted the Pulitzer Prize Board for honoring "largely debunked" reporting that accused Trump’s campaign of colluding with the Russian government in order to gain an advantage in the 2016 election.
"The idea that President Trump plotted with Vladimir Putin to skew the 2016 election in his favor was always preposterous. Since 2018, if not before, it has been clear that the articles upon which the Pulitzer Board based its Prize include numerous false statement that’s are defamatory to our client," the letter said. "We assume that in awarding the Prize, the Board was misled by frenzied media reports alleging that President Trump colluded with Russia. That was never plausible, and it has since been proven to have been a cynical invention of Hillary Clinton, her campaign, and the DNC."
Former President Trump’s legal team called for the Pulitzer Prize committee to "correct the record and promote journalistic fairness and integrity." (Getty Images)
The letter makes a series of points that Trump’s legal team feels makes the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories unworthy of the prestigious honor. It cited Special Counsel Robert Mueller failing to find evidence of collusion, a DOJ Inspector General Report, a 2019 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order and the actions of multiple individuals such as Michael Sussmann and Igor Danchenko as evidence to support the claim that the Times and Post aren’t worthy of journalism awards for the Russian collusion narrative.
Subsequent reporting on Russiagate has found that many claims of the Christopher Steele dossier that drove some of the early narratives about Trump-Russia collusion were spurious, mere rumors or even outright falsehoods, and that figures like Sussmann and Danchenko acted on behalf of the Clinton campaign and pushed collusion narratives that filtered down to the media.
The staff of the Times and Post shared the award 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.
President Trump has been irked that the New York Times was honored for coverage that his team has called "unworthy" of a Pulitzer Prize. (Getty Images / iStock)
Trump and his team had made multiple attempts in the past to reverse the "erroneous decision" in the past to no avail. The latest attempt, which drew a reaction from the Pulitzer Prize Board, maintained that the record needs to be corrected.
"We hope that this information is helpful to the Pulitzer committee’s consideration of President Trump’s objections to the continuing publication of the Prize awarded to The New York Times and The Washington Post. The Pulitzer Board should not have its imprimatur on a story line that has been shown to be a political smear by Hillary Clinton, her campaign, and the DNC, and which is injurious to our client," Trump’s attorneys wrote.
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"Surely, the findings of multiple investigations, the trial testimony of former Clinton campaign officials, and other revelations since 2017 have made is clear that the articles upon which the Prize is based are unworthy of that honor," the letter concluded. "We request the opportunity to speak with the Pulitzer committee so that we may offer any further assistance it needs to correct the record and promote journalistic fairness and integrity."
Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report.
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