FL Supreme Court Allows Trump’s Suit Against Pulitzer Prize Board to Proceed
The Florida Supreme Court has refused to block President Donald J. Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board, a move that allows the case to advance in state court and keeps alive Trump’s effort to hold the media establishment accountable for spreading the so-called “Russia collusion hoax.”
In a brief order issued this week, the justices declined to grant the Pulitzer board’s request for a delay until after President Trump leaves office, writing:
“This cause having heretofore been submitted to the Court on jurisdictional briefs and portions of the record deemed necessary to reflect jurisdiction under Article V, Section 3(b), Florida Constitution, and the Court having determined that it should decline to accept jurisdiction, it is ordered that the petition for review is denied. No motion for rehearing will be entertained by the Court.”
The lawsuit targets the Pulitzer Board’s 2018 decision to award The New York Times and The Washington Post journalism’s most coveted prize for their coverage of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation—reporting that Trump has consistently described as defamatory, politically motivated, and false.
Trump filed the suit in Florida, where he resides, and where at least one Pulitzer board member also lives. The board argued the case should be postponed, claiming that allowing state courts to exercise jurisdiction over a sitting president might raise constitutional concerns.
Both the trial court and the Fourth District Court of Appeal rejected that argument, and the state’s high court has now followed suit.
The rulings rest on established precedent. In Clinton v. Jones (1997), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a sitting president does not have immunity from civil litigation for conduct that occurred before assuming office and unrelated to official duties. By that standard, the courts determined President Trump may pursue his claim while serving as president.
The Mueller Report in 2019 confirmed that investigators found “insufficient evidence” of any Trump campaign conspiracy with Russia, despite years of media insistence to the contrary. While Robert Mueller pointed to attempts by Russian-linked individuals to make contact with Trump’s team, the central narrative—that Trump colluded with Moscow to win the 2016 election—collapsed.
Yet the Pulitzer board never revoked the prizes it awarded for that reporting, even after government findings debunked the narrative. Trump’s lawsuit argues the board acted with “actual malice” by upholding the awards in light of clear evidence the reporting was false.
The Florida Supreme Court’s refusal to delay the case ensures proceedings will continue at the trial level. No trial date has been set, but Trump’s legal team hailed the ruling as a major step forward in the fight to expose the media’s role in perpetuating one of the most damaging political hoaxes in American history.
“This decision affirms the president’s right to seek accountability through the courts,” a spokesperson for Trump’s attorneys said.
The Trump administration views the case as more than a personal defamation battle—it is an effort to set the historical record straight. The Pulitzer board’s choice to reward reporting born from Clinton campaign opposition research and Democratic National Committee talking points is now under direct legal scrutiny.
If successful, the case could mark a watershed moment in the struggle to hold legacy media institutions accountable for their partisan activism disguised as journalism.