Trump demands the withdrawal of the Pulitzer Prizes of the publications covering his connection with Russia

The 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, demands the withdrawal of the Pulitzer laureates' awards who wrote materials about his alleged collusion with Russia, reports New York Post.

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Donald Trump has called on the Pulitzer Council to cancel the prizes awarded by the New York Times and the Washington Post for coverage of the story of collusion with Russia, saying they are based on "false reports."

In a statement released Sunday morning in response to a letter addressed to Bud Clement, the interim administrator of the award, Trump said he wants the council to cancel the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Journalism submitted by the New York Times and the Washington Post because the reporting was based on "false reporting of a nonexistent connection between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign."

“As has been widely publicized, the coverage was nothing more than a politically motivated farce that attempted to spread a false narrative that my campaign allegedly colluded with Russia, despite a complete lack of evidence to support that allegation,” he said. in a letter.

The former president, who also called for the cancellation of the prizes in March 2019, pointed to the indictment last month of Michael Sussmann, former Hillary Clinton presidential campaigner, by Special Adviser John Durham.

Durham claims that Sussmann lied to the FBI when he warned them in September 2016 of a possible link between the Trump campaign and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin.

Sussmann's indictment "serves as a decisive rebuttal to the media's obsession with the collusion story and clearly charges that Sussmann made false statements to the FBI when he presented 'evidence' purportedly demonstrating secret connections between my organization and Russia-based Alfa Bank," it said. Trump's letter.

Sussmann told the FBI he was passing the information on as a "good citizen," but Trump claims the indictment shows Sussmann "worked with other Democrats and billed his time for the Clinton campaign."

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The indictment states that the mail server in question was not owned or operated by the Trump organization, but rather was run by a mass email marketing company that advertises Trump hotels and hundreds of other clients.

In 2019, Special Adviser Robert Mueller and his team found no evidence of collusion between then President Donald Trump and Moscow.

Trump and his allies have called the Russian collusion investigation a "witch hunt."

Trump noted that the Pulitzer administration praised newspapers for "a carefully crafted and consistently publicized case that greatly improved understanding of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and its connection to the Trump campaign, the president-elect's transition team, and his administration."

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“The headlines themselves were extremely sensational and relied heavily on uncorroborated anonymous sources,” Donald Trump said in a letter to Pulitzer’s board.

According to him, the articles were devoted to "the now debunked conspiracy theory of conspiracy with Russia" and contained information based on anonymous sources.

“The headlines themselves were extremely sensational and relied heavily on unsubstantiated anonymous sources. For example, much of the information contained in these articles was attributed to “people with knowledge,” “current and former officials,” “certain senior U.S. officials,” and other unidentified individuals,” the letter states.

“As a result, the public was deprived of an independent means of assessing the credibility of these articles, their potential political bias, and the source of their information,” Trump continued.

Trump says the prizes convey a "level of respect" that the report noted "is considered credible, well-prepared and reliable."

“When it becomes apparent that work that has won a Pulitzer Prize is based on poor, dubious and patently false reporting—as in this case—the Pulitzer Prize Board must respond accordingly,” Trump said.

He went on to say that he hoped the New York Times and the Washington Post would "voluntarily surrender" the awards.

But if they do not, “I expect you to take the necessary steps to remedy the situation, including stripping recipients of their prizes and discarding false claims that remain on Pulitzer's website. If you do not demand such high responsibility from the recipients, the reputation of the Pulitzer Prize will be completely undermined. "

Pulitzer's board has not yet responded to a request for comment.

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