Florida's top court refuses to entertain notion that Trump's defamation suit is too burdensome for him, in supreme loss for Pulitzer Prize board members

In a triumph for Donald Trump and his ineligible team, the Florida Supreme Court this week refused to assistance a rehearing to Pulitzer Prize committee members who tried and failed to halt the president's defamation suit implicit 2018 Washington Post and New York Times Russia probe reporting awards until he's retired of office.

The connection from the tribunal connected Tuesday was extremely brief but nevertheless significant, arsenic respective justices concurred successful the denial without elaboration:

This origin having heretofore been submitted to the Court connected jurisdictional briefs and portions of the grounds deemed indispensable to bespeak jurisdiction nether Article V, Section 3(b), Florida Constitution, and the Court having determined that it should diminution to judge jurisdiction, it is ordered that the petition for reappraisal is denied.

No question for rehearing volition beryllium entertained by the Court. See Fla. R. App. P. 9.330(d)(2).

The upshot present is that the lawsuit tin erstwhile again proceed successful the proceedings court. In July 2024, Trump persuaded Senior 19th Judicial Circuit Judge Robert Pegg that the president's claims were "properly pled" and that a 2022 connection from the committee lasting by New York Times and Washington Post reporting connected peculiar counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe was "actionable mixed opinion."

Trump lawyer Quincy Bird reportedly reacted to the Florida Supreme Court's denial by saying it was a "correct and conscionable decision" that volition let a "very illuminating find process" to continue.

Other than docket entries acknowledging ongoing authorities appellate and Supreme Court filings, the proceedings tribunal lawsuit has been quiescent since March, erstwhile Pegg archetypal rejected committee members' petition for a enactment based connected Trump's presumption arsenic president. The lone question present is whether the board, like different media entities, volition effort to settee the lawsuit alternatively than subjecting itself to a perchance damaging find process and a assemblage trial.

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Andrew W. Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander and The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum, among much than a dozen different committee members named successful Trump's suit, had asked Florida's apical tribunal to unopen down the lawsuit connected the thought that it would excessively burdensome and a distraction hindering Trump from carrying retired his duties arsenic president.

In opposing that argument, Trump's attorneys called the last-ditch petition for a yearslong enactment successful the authorities civilian lawsuit an "analytically confused and wrong" effort to assertion an immunity from suit that belongs to the main enforcement alone.

When Trump archetypal filed the suit successful 2022, helium sought to clasp the Pulitzer committee subordinate defendants liable for the pursuing connection that backed awards for Russia probe reporting and pointed to autarkic reviews of the sum to rebuff the then-private citizen's demands to rescind the prizes:

The Pulitzer Prize Board has an established, ceremonial process by which complaints against winning entries are cautiously reviewed. In the past 3 years, the Pulitzer Board has received inquiries, including from erstwhile President Donald Trump, astir submissions from The New York Times and The Washington Post connected Russian interference successful the U.S. predetermination and its connections to the Trump campaign—submissions that jointly won the 2018 National Reporting prize.

These inquiries prompted the Pulitzer Board to committee 2 autarkic reviews of the enactment submitted by those organizations to our National Reporting competition. Both reviews were conducted by individuals with nary transportation to the institutions whose enactment was nether examination, nor immoderate transportation to each other. The abstracted reviews converged successful their conclusions: that nary passages oregon headlines, contentions oregon assertions successful immoderate of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged consequent to the conferral of the prizes.

The committee members' attorneys offered up that same defense in a little earlier the Supreme Court of Florida, penning that the "twenty award-winning articles […] reported facts that Respondent has ne'er contested, and nary of the Articles has since been retracted oregon corrected."

Trump lawyers said that was "ludicrous."

"In their Statement of the Case and Facts, Petitioners stray acold beyond the facts stated successful the territory court's opinion. They adjacent falsely unreal that President Trump has ne'er contested the articles published by The New York Times and The Washington Post maliciously and wrongly asserting that his run colluded with Russia to triumph the 2016 election," the little said, adding that the committee members "are not entitled to their ain mentation of reality."

The Pulitzer committee failed astatine the state's Fourth District Court of Appeal arsenic good successful asserting that due to the fact that Trump tin assertion immunity from suit portion he's president, the members should fundamentally capable to asseverate that close for him.

"Petitioners efficaciously inquire that the tribunal invoke a impermanent immunity nether the Supremacy Clause connected [Trump's] behalf to enactment this civilian proceeding, adjacent though [Trump] has not sought specified relief," the appellate tribunal explained. "They further allege that it would interruption owed process to let [Trump] to assertion law entitlement to enactment cases due to the fact that of his bureau but not let them the aforesaid ability."

"But specified privileges are afforded to the President alone, not to his litigation adversaries," the appellate tribunal added, dubbing Trump a "willing participant" that is "uniquely equipped to find however to usage his time" and has not invoked immunity.