Pulitzer board demands 'complete and unredacted' copy of Mueller report in discovery as Trump decries 'defamatory' words

Source: Law & Crime

Feb 2nd, 2026, 10:01 am


If Donald Trump intends to pursue his lawsuit against Pulitzer Prize Board members to the end, the defendants are demanding that the president's legal team hand over a "complete" copy of former special counsel Robert Mueller's report, putting to the test through discovery Trump's claims that a "defamatory" board statement backing Russia probe reporting awards harmed his reputation.

On Friday in Okeechobee County, Florida, where Trump has also filed several notices of board member depositions for the coming weeks, the defendants formally sought a "complete and unredacted copy of the Mueller Report" and "all documents and communications exchanged between" Trump and Mueller's team.

When Trump first filed the lawsuit in 2022, he sought to hold the Pulitzer board member defendants liable for the following statement that backed New York Times and Washington Post awards following independent reviews of the 2017 coverage, a statement rebuffing his demands to rescind the prizes:

The Pulitzer Prize Board has an established, formal process by which complaints against winning entries are carefully reviewed. In the last three years, the Pulitzer Board has received inquiries, including from former President Donald Trump, about submissions from The New York Times and The Washington Post on Russian interference in the U.S. election and its connections to the Trump campaign—submissions that jointly won the 2018 National Reporting prize.