Trump threatens to sue if Pulitzer board does not rescind 2018 prizes

Former President Donald Trump still wants the Pulitzer Prize board to rescind awards it gave to newspapers for their reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Mr. Trump even threatened to sue if the board “cannot be persuaded to do the right thing on its own.”

“There is no dispute that the Pulitzer Board’s award to those media outlets was based on false and fabricated information that they published,” Mr. Trump wrote to Marjorie Miller, administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes.

The letter is dated Friday but was circulated by Mr. Trump’s associates on Tuesday.

It is the third letter Mr. Trump has sent to the Pulitzer board demanding revocation of the prizes awarded in 2018 to The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Mr. Trump has cited a report by special counsel Robert Mueller that found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian actors, even if their interests aligned at times. The former president has pointed to the report as vindication after claims of Russian “collusion” dogged the early years of his presidency.

The former president also highlighted the indictment of an attorney in Hillary Clinton’s orbit on charges of lying to the FBI, saying it debunked a false theory the Trump campaign had secret communications with Russia-based Alfa Bank.

A jury acquitted the lawyer, Michael Sussmann, on Tuesday, a major blow to special counsel John Durham’s efforts in pursuing possible misconduct by U.S. intelligence agencies probing theories about Trump-Russia collusion.

But Mr. Trump’s letter, drafted before the verdict, put an emphasis on the Sussmann trial.

“Please continue to pay close attention to the testimony at Mr. Sussman’s [sic] trial as well as all other pertinent information,” Mr. Trump wrote. “I again call on you to rescind the Prize you awarded based on blatantly fake, derogatory and defamatory news. If you choose to not do so, we will see you in court.”