President Trump has called for the Pulitzer prize to be revoked from award winners who won based on their reporting of an alleged connection between the Trump Campaign and the Kremlin.
The 45th president said in a statement from his Save America PAC last weekend, “I call on the Pulitzer Prize Board to immediately rescind the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting awarded to the staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post, which was based on false reporting of a non-existent link between the Kremlin and the Trump Campaign.”
“As has been widely publicized, the coverage was no more than a politically motivated farce which attempted to spin a false narrative that my campaign supposedly colluded with Russia despite a complete lack of evidence underpinning this allegation,” he said criticizing the board’s award recipients’ reporting.
President Trump also stated, “For two years, these institutions feverishly pushed one Russia story after another and – despite lacking any credible evidence – attempted to persuade the public that my campaign had colluded with the Russian government.”
This is not the first time that President Trump has called for Pulitzers to be revoked from the reporters who alleged there was Russian interference in the 2016 election. When Trump had access to his Twitter account, he wrote in 2019, “So funny that The New York Times & The Washington Post got a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage (100% NEGATIVE and FAKE!) of Collusion with Russia – And there was No Collusion! So, they were either duped or corrupt?” the president went on to say, “In any event, their prizes should be taken away by the Committee!”
He continued in his statement that John Durham’s indictment of Hillary Clinton’s former campaign attorney and cybersecurity attorney Michael Sussman on making false statements to the FBI proves further that he is innocent.
Trump and his campaign have repeatedly called the Russia collusion allegations a “witch hunt”, and none of the allegations have ever come to fruition. Even after the special counsel, led by Robert Mueller, found there was no evidence of collusion between Moscow and Trump’s team.
President Trump concluded his statement saying he hopes that the 2018 winners of the Pulitzer will get revoked, and if not, hopes that the false allegations towards Russia and the Trump campaign collusion in the 2016 election are rescinded.
“Without holding the recipients to such a high standard of accountability, the integrity of the Pulitzer Prize namesake stands to be wholly compromised,” said President Trump.