Lawyers for the board that awards Pulitzer Prizes asked a Florida state court to pause a defamation lawsuit, which President Trump filed against board members in 2022, until Trump is no longer president.
In asking the court to put the case on hold, the defense lawyers leaned heavily on arguments that Trump’s own lawyers have made in two separate cases — arguing a state court cannot constitutionally exercise jurisdiction over the sitting president.
The defense lawyers pointed to an example from Trump’s first term, when he was sued by a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” accusing him of unwanted sexual advances. Trump’s team argued at the time that, without a stay, the suit, which has since been settled, would “disrupt and impair” Trump’s “ability to discharge his Article II responsibilities.”
The Monday filing also points to an example from just last week, when Trump’s legal team requested a stay in a case against him and his social media company brought by former investors.
“Likewise, just days ago, Plaintiff reiterated these points in a case against him in Delaware state court, arguing that, because litigation would unconstitutionally interfere with his presidential duties, ‘[c]ommonsense favors a stay of this case until the end of the President’s term,’ so that ‘President Trump can devote his time and energies to America’s problems,’” Pulitzer board lawyers wrote in the filing.
Using Trump’s own defense against him, the defense lawyers added: “According to Plaintiff, ‘[t]he appropriate answer’ to these constitutional concerns ‘is to postpone’ such a state court case ‘until [the President] is no longer in office.’”
“Defendants agree,” they continued. “To avoid such constitutional conflicts, the Court should stay this case until Plaintiff’s term in office has concluded.”
Trump filed the defamation lawsuit in question in 2022 over a statement that Pulitzer board members filed, after conducting two independent reviews that Trump and others requested over Pulitzers that had been awarded for stories about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The board ultimately rejected Trump’s request to revoke the 2018 national reporting awards, which were given to the staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post, saying the reviews concluded: “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’s suit, which was filed in an Okeechobee County, Fla., court, alleges the board acted with actual malice in issuing the statement with the aim of damaging Trump’s reputation, asking for an unspecified amount of damages.
The Hill has reached out to Trump’s legal team for a response.
