Former President Donald Trump slammed the Pulitzer Prize Board for not retracting the awards given in 2018 for reporting on the Russia investigation, the same day the House Jan. 6 committee voted to subpoena him.
Trump, in a release from his Save America PAC, called the reporting by the New York Times and Washington Post “inaccurate, inept, and corrupt.”
PULITZER BOARD REJECTS TRUMP BID TO YANK NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST AWARDS
“The Russia, Russia, Russia hoax has been totally debunked. The fake news media covered it incorrectly — reporting exactly the opposite of what actually happened. Yet, the Pulitzer Board has not rescinded the prizes they awarded for reporting that was inaccurate, inept, and corrupt,” the statement said. “In order to restore the credibility of the Pulitzer Prizes, the Pulitzer Board should take away prizes from all who got it wrong. Additionally, it would be appropriate to award new prizes to all those who got it right.”
The post also included a copy of a notice letter to the Pulitzer Board claiming its statement sticking by the 2018 awards opens members of the board to be held liable for the “defamatory statement.”
The board defended its decision to award the New York Times and Washington Post in 2018, saying it had commissioned two independent reviews after receiving inquiries from Trump.
“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 statement in July said.
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The 2018 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting was awarded “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,” per its website.
Trump’s statement came after the Jan. 6 committee held what may be its final hearing. Members unanimously voted to subpoena Trump, after which the former president asked why the panel didn’t take that action months ago. Trump also called the committee’s review “a total ‘BUST'” that only serves “to further divide our Country.”
