In a new letter released Tuesday morning, former President Donald Trump again called on the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes to rescind the 2018 awards given to The Washington Post and The New York Times for their coverage of the Russian collusion hoax — and threatened to take the organization to court if they don't act.
The letter from Trump to Administrator Marjorie Miller notes that the former president previously requested — on October 3 and November 15 last year — that the Pulitzer Prize Board revoke its prizes for "National Reporting" that were awarded to The Times and The Post "for their purportedly '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.'"
As Trump writes:
There is no dispute that the Pulitzer Board's award to those media outlets was based on false and fabricated information that they published. The continuing publication and recognition of the prizes on the Board's website is a distortion of fact and a personal defamation that will result in the filing of litigation if the Board cannot be persuaded to do the right thing on its own. In light of additional recent evidence that the articles for which the prize was awarded contained incontrovertibly false information that misled the public, I again call on your organization to maintain its own credibility by rescinding that prize to The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Among the "vital facts the public has learned over this week" Trump cited in his letter are:
- The Russia hoax was a dirty campaign trick promulgated by Crooked Hillary Clinton and her associates. I never had any relationship with Alfa Bank — any claim otherwise is a total scam.
- Clinton Campaign Manager Robby Mook testified that Hillary Clinton personally approved the decision to promote the false narrative of secret communications between me and my campaign, on the one hand, and Alfa Bank, on the other hand.
- Mr. Sussman[sic], a lawyer working for Mrs. Clinton, asked Former FBI General Counsel James Baker for a meeting about the false link between me and my campaign and Alfa Bank under the false pretense that he wanted to help the Bureau, and not because he was working on behalf of the Clinton Campaign. Mr. Sussman[sic] billed the Clinton Campaign for the time that he spent meeting with Mr. Baker.
- An FBI Special Agent and DNS data expert explained that the Alfa Bank data did not support the white papers that Sussman[sic] provided to the FBI.
- Former Clinton Campaign General Counsel Marc Elias confirmed that he hired Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on me and my campaign, which resulted in the fake Steele Dossier.
The former president continues by criticizing the "Clinton campaign's shameful smears" and noting that there is "more and more clarity with each passing day about the propaganda and falsehoods that were pushed by the Clintons and their willing accomplices in the media about the 'collusion'" before adding that "The New York Times and The Washington Post have effectively admitted this fact."
Asking "how do I get my reputation back?" Trump issued a demand that the Pulitzer organization "preserve all documentation as to the above facts, along with all other information that my counsel asked the Board to preserve in our earlier correspondence" and reiterated his call that they "rescind the Prize you awarded based on blatantly fake, derogatory and defamatory news. If you choose to not do so, we will see you in court."