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White House threatens WaPo journalist with 'dossier' for report on Trump's firm 'charging govt over $900K'

The White House accused journalist David Fahrenthold of interfering with Trump Organization's affairs but the reporter said Trump was defending his personal businesses

The tussle between the Donald Trump administration and the mainstream media has become prominent once more with a White House spokesperson openly threatening a Washington Post reporter saying it was making a “dossier” on him in response to his reporting on the Trump Organization.

According to a report that came out on VICE News on Friday, August 28, journalist David Fahrenthold and his colleagues published the article on how the Secret Service has been a “captive customer” in spending the tax-payers’ money on Trump Organization properties and when they submitted questions to the White House regarding it, the latter came hard at them. White House spokesperson Judd Deere told the media that the administration had its eye on Fahrenthold, a Pulitzer Prize (2017) winner for his coverage on President Donald Trump. 

In a statement to the Post, Deere said: “The Washington Post is blatantly interfering with the business relationships of the Trump Organization, and it must stop.” He added: “Please be advised that we are building up a very large ‘dossier’ on the many false David Fahrenthold and others stories as they are a disgrace to journalism and the American people.”

According to the Post report, more than $900,000 of the public’s money had been spent at Trump’s businesses, including at least $570,000 that went after his travel. It claimed that the Trump Organization charged Secret Service agents daily “resort fees”. Trump has been accused of using his office to promote his personal business properties. Recently, a watchdog has revealed that there have been several instances of conflict of interest in the Trump presidency. It found nearly 2,000 cases of visits by government officials to the president’s properties.  

While the Post refused to remark on the issue to multiple outlets, the 42-year-old Fahrenthold accused Deere of defending Trump’s private businesses. 

The company owning Trump Vancouver hotel goes bankrupt, reports Fahrenthold 

Fahrenthold also tweeted about Trump’s Vancouver hotel, saying the company that owned it has filed for bankruptcy. “The hotel has been closed since April b/c of Covid-19. The owner now says it’s unclear if it will ever reopen,” he said.

In another tweet, Fahrenthold said Trump Vancouver’s website was no more there and the name was erased from the Trump Org site and its social media accounts deleted. 

Fahrenthold also liked a tweet which fellow journalist Jach Everson posted tagging the former’s post on the Vancouver hotel owner’s bankruptcy.  The tweet said Trump’s two sons -- Donald Trump Junior and Eric -- traveled to the hotel in Vancouver for its grand opening and at least $20,000 of tax-payers’ money was spent at the Trump Hotel for Secret Service agent's rooms.

The VICE report said that it was still not clear what the alleged “dossier” contained but since Fahrenthold has always been scrutinizing Trump (it was he who broke the story of the president’s Access Hollywood tape in October 2016 that revealed his ugly remarks about grabbing women by their genitals), one would be curious to know how the poll-bound administration plans to deal with the investigative reporter. 

That Fahrenthold himself is no less curious about it was evident when he put out a call on Twitter asking someone to reveal the dossier’s content to him. The dossier is likely to be exempted from the Freedom of Information Act apart from other White House records. 

Even if the dossier sees the light of the day, Fahrenthold is not the first reporter to face such experience. Last month, the Post got copies of “intelligence reports” the homeland security department had made about a reporter for the New York Times and the editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog and gave to the law-enforcement agencies. 

Also earlier this year, the Trump campaign filed libel lawsuits against the Post, Times and CNN on charges of making false reporting in op-eds related to the president’s campaign’s ties to Russia.