Trump threatens to sue Pulitzer Prize board if it doesn’t rescind ‘Russiagate’ awards

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Donald Trump has threatened to sue the Pulitzer Prize board if it does not rescind awards for reporting on Russian 2016 election collusion.

The legal threat comes after federal indictments against sources to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the infamous "Steele dossier", a series of allegations about Mr Trump collected by former British spy Christopher Steele.

While the Steele dossier was referenced in some parts of the “Russiagate” reporting, the Pulitzer Prize was awarded to The New York Times and The Washington Post for a series of 20 stories published between February and September 2017. The submission focused on revelations including Michael Flynn talking to Russia’s envoy before the inauguration, the Obama administration’s handling of allegations, Mr Trump’s response, and the subsequent Mueller investigation.

"It is hereby demanded that the Pulitzer Prize Board take immediate steps to strip the New York Times and The Washington Post of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting," wrote attorney Alina Habba in a letter to Bud Kliment, the interim administrator of the awards.

"Pulitzer Prize Board’s failure to do so will result in prompt legal action being taken against it. Please be guided accordingly."

Ten reporters from The New York Times and The Washington Post won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for "deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage" of Russian interference connections to the Trump campaign.

Mr Trump’s legal threat references two sources: Michael Sussmann and Igor Danchenko, who are now facing criminal charges for lying to the federal investigators.

Mr Sussman allegedly did not disclose to the FBI that he was representing the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton when he gave evidence about communications between the Trump campaign and Russian bank Alfa Bank.

Mr Danchenko, meanwhile, is accused of fabricating a phone call about a "well-developed conspiracy of co-operation” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Following the indictments from Special Counsel John Durham, The Washington Post corrected and retracted parts of two articles from 2017 and 2019 that were related to the Steele dossier.

“The original version of this article published on March 29, 2017, said that Sergei Millian was a source for parts of a dossier of unverified allegations against Donald Trump. That account has been contradicted by allegations contained in a federal indictment filed in November 2021 and undermined by further reporting by The Washington Post. As a result, portions of the story and an accompanying video have been removed and the headline has been changed,” the editor’s note in the 2017 article read.

“The original account was based on two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide sensitive information. One of those people now says the new information ‘puts in grave doubt that Millian’ was a source for parts of the dossier. The other declined to comment."

While neither of those two stories were included as part of the Post’s Pulitzer Prize submission, that correction was cited by Mr Trump’s attorney in the complaint to the Pulitzer Board, saying it showed that articles were based on "incontrovertibly false" information from dubious sources attempting to mislead the public.

"Even one of the recipients of the award, The Washington Post, has acknowledged the unsubstantiated nature of its reporting as it relates to these events. Specifically, on November 12, 2021, The Post retracted statements from several articles relating to the Steele Dossier and the alleged Russia-Trump connection," the complaint said.

The Washington Post’s Executive Editor Sally Buzbee told The Independent in a statement that the story they corrected was not among those included in the Pulitzer Prize submission.

“The coverage awarded the prize focused on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the Obama administration’s handling of the interference and contacts between certain members of Trump’s administration and Russian officials. We are proud of that important work, which was later substantiated and affirmed by the investigations led by special counsel Robert S Mueller III and the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee.”

The New York Times did not respond to a request for comment, while the Pulitzer Board, which previously rescinded The New York Times citation for the discredited “Caliphate” podcast, did not respond when asked if it would rescind the 2018 National Reporting prize.