This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
President Donald Trump has been handed a huge victory in his lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board, which awarded honors to publications based on their coverage of what turned out to be a made-up conspiracy theory, and then its refusal to rescind them.
RedState said the victory comes from an appellate court decision in Florida that unanimously affirmed a trial court's decision to keep the case alive.
The Pulitzer Board had demanded that the case, brought by Trump in 2022 over the panel's stunning awards to the New York Times and Washington Post for their "Russia collusion" stories, which all explained claims that Trump's 2020 campaign colluded with Russia, be dismissed.
That theory, at the time, was supported by no evidence. In fact, it was a political spin created by his opponent during that election, the Democrat party and others.
Judge Ed Artau explained that not only did the trial court have jurisdiction over the defendants, the statements at the heart of the claim are actionable.
"Artau notes that numerous entities had squashed the Russia collusion narrative. But the Pulitzer Prize Board, in defiantly issuing a statement refusing to rescind the awards for reporting based more on fantasy than reality, further pushed the assertion of collusion," the report explained.
"As noted in the President's complaint, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Attorney General William Barr, the House of Representatives' Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the United States Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence all concluded 'there was no evidence of collusion between President Trump, the Trump Campaign, and Russia,'" Artau explained. 'In other words, as the President asserts, '[t]he Russia Collusion Hoax was dead, at least until Defendants [as members of the Pulitzer Prize board] attempted to resurrect it' by conspiring to publish a defamatory statement falsely implying that the President colluded with the Russians."
The ruling knocked down the board's claim their statements were opinion, "The board members vouched for the truth of reporting that had been debunked by all credible sources charged with investigating the false claim that the President colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 presidential election."
At issue now will be whether the defendants "acted with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth."
Trump lawyer Quincy Bird said, "Today's ruling is an unequivocal victory for President Trump in his pursuit of justice against the Pulitzer Prize board members for their dishonest and defamatory conduct. President Trump is committed to holding those who traffic in fake news, lies, and smears to account, and he looks forward to seeing his powerful cases through to a just conclusion."
In fact, now in the White House, Trump has instructed his press secretary to call out lies pushed by the media, and she already has done so several times, publicly humiliating various agencies.
The Washington Post eventually corrected a bunch of its reports."
The lawsuit charges that the awards essentially rewarded publications "for lying to the American public."
Among the board's wild claims included that the Times and Post had "deeply resourced" and "relentlessly reported" on the "Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connection to the Trump campaign."
However, real sourcing and real relentless reporting confirmed there were no connections.
Even after the conspiracy theory was debunked, the Pulitzer board claimed none of the articles was "discredited by the facts that emerged…"
The reports were mostly based on the Steele dossier, which was an opposition-research fabrication created with the funding of the Democrats, including 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton.
Axios described the scenario as "one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history."
Trump recently secured a settlement in a lawsuit against ABC, and a jury found CNN liable for defamation for its own false report.
A separate action against "60 Minutes' remains pending.
