It’s well known that Donald Trump won’t face criminal prosecution while he’s in office, which is what led special counsel Jack Smith to drop the federal cases against him after the 2024 election. But another dynamic is developing in his civil litigation, specifically in the pending lawsuit he brought against the Pulitzer Prize Board. 

As a reminder, Trump sued over an award given to The New York Times and The Washington Post for stories about Russia and his 2016 campaign. He argued that board members and staff conspired to publish a defamatory statement in 2022 affirming the veracity of the newspapers’ prize-winning journalism.

Now that Trump is back in office, the board members he sued are asking a Florida state court to pause the case while he’s in office. To support that claim, they cite Trump’s own arguments that he previously made to get other litigation paused. For example, they pointed to a Delaware case in which he and others related to his social media company were sued, quoting him as arguing that “any compulsory process by the States directly against the sitting President risks interference with the Executive Branch in violation of federal supremacy.” The board argued that “this case creates the same constitutional conflicts.” 

The board argued that failing to pause the case would “open the floodgates to any number of other actions against him in state courts across the country as he serves out his term in office.” They noted his apparent position is that he can’t be sued in state court while president, “even as he insists that he can still sue individual U.S. citizens in state court while President.” Resolving the pause request, then, could test how far Trump’s legal protection extends as president — and how uniquely the courts are willing to tailor it to how he employs litigation.

Underlying the legal protections from which Trump has benefited is the notion that courts are concerned that subjecting presidents to litigation while in office could interfere with their executive duties. But what about litigation that Trump has brought and wants to pursue, as opposed to when he’s the one being sued? The board noted that the suit could subject Trump to legal processes that he wouldn’t like, which could raise its own problems. If Trump still wants to press forward, we could learn if the courts are willing to draw a further distinction in his favor. 

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