Florida Supreme Court Rejects Pulitzer Prize Board Request to Pause Trump Lawsuit

A state appeals court also ruled in May that the defamation litigation should proceed.

The Florida Supreme Court building in Tallahassee on Jan. 22, 2023. Nanette Holt/the Epoch Times

The Florida Supreme Court decided on Aug. 26 that it will not pause President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board.

The Pulitzer board had urged the court to put the litigation on hold during Trump’s presidency because presidential immunity may prevent a state court from compelling him to comply with court orders.

The Florida Supreme Court issued an unsigned one-page order in Alexander v. Trump saying it would not review a May ruling by the Fourth District Court of Appeal for the State of Florida that denied the board’s request. The state supreme court did not explain its decision.

The new ruling means Trump may move forward with his lawsuit.

The Pulitzer board gave out awards to media outlets for stories alleging Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign to help elect Trump. Trump has long denied the allegations of collusion between him and Russia, which have been widely debunked.

Trump sued the Pulitzer board after it declined to rescind the 2018 National Reporting prizes presented to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their articles published in 2017 on the allegations.

The Pulitzer board said when it gave out the awards that they were 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.”

In March 2019, an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller vindicated Trump, finding no evidence of collusion.

In his lawsuit, Trump cited a statement by the board in which it said it received inquiries, including from Trump, about the awards presented to the two media outlets.

The board said it submitted the articles concerned for two independent reviews and both determined 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.”

Trump sued, accusing the board of acting with actual malice in issuing the statement with the intention to harm him and his reputation. Trump asked for compensatory damages of an unspecified amount.

The U.S. Supreme Court held in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) that public officials cannot win damages for libel if they fail to prove a statement was issued with actual malice, which has been defined as “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”

After Trump returned to office in January, the Pulitzer board asked a Florida circuit court to stay the lawsuit during Trump’s term of office. In March, it declined to do so.

In its ruling in May, the Fourth District Court of Appeal noted that the board argued the lawsuit would “be a distraction to the Presidency.”

However, the court ruled that Trump, who filed the lawsuit, “is in the best position to determine if these proceedings would be a diversion and interfere with the obligations of his office, or whether his continued participation is consistent with the performance of his official responsibilities.”

“The right to claim burdens on executive functions belongs to the Executive Branch—not to its opponent,” the court said.

Trump attorney Quincy Bird of Weber Crabb & Wein in St. Petersburg, Florida, hailed the new Florida Supreme Court ruling.

Bird said in a post on X that he was “happy to report” the state supreme court “agrees with the well-reasoned decision” from the appeals court that denied the Pulitzer board’s “absurd attempt to assert executive privileges against the sitting [president of the United States].”

A spokesperson for the Pulitzer Prize Board told The Epoch Times the organization is considering its legal options.

“Allowing this case to proceed facilitates President Trump’s use of state courts as both a sword and a shield—allowing him to seek retribution against anyone he chooses in state court while simultaneously claiming immunity for himself whenever convenient,” the spokesperson said.

“The Pulitzer Board is evaluating next steps and will continue our defense of journalism and First Amendment rights.”

Katabella Roberts and Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report.