Following reporter David A. Fahrenthold’s investigation of the Trump Foundation in Tuesday’s Washington Post, the Trump campaign issued a carefully worded, but characteristically vitriolic statement attacking the paper. The article in question documented incidents in which Trump Foundation money was allegedly used to pay Donald Trump‘s personal expenses — including $258,000 in lawsuits — and the Republican nominee’s senior communications adviser, Jason Miller, is not happy. So much, in fact, that he made sure to focus his critique on the Washington Post‘s reporting while forgetting to mention any specific issues with Fahrenthold’s article.
“In typical Washington Post fashion, they’ve gotten their facts wrong,” Miller fumed. “The Post‘s reporting is peppered with inaccuracies and omissions from a biased reporter who is clearly intent on distracting attention away from the corrupt Clinton Foundation, a vehicle for the Clintons to peddle influence at the expense of the American people.”
As CNN’s Jake Tapper pointed out on Twitter, however, Miller never “[disputed] one specific fact.”
Trump campaign response to @Fahrenthold's great reporting is to attack him and not dispute one specific fact. pic.twitter.com/cx3wkD5707
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 21, 2016
A glaring observation which, per the statement’s vague reference to “inaccuracies and omissions,” turns out to be true. Miller never mentions any of the four particular examples Fahrenthold expounded upon — Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, one of his golf courses in New York, ads touting his hotel chain, and another portrait of the White House hopeful. Instead, he spends most of the response trying to cast further doubt on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s own foundation while extolling the supposed virtues of Trump’s charitable organization:
“It is the Clinton Foundation that is set up to make sure the Clintons personally enrich themselves by selling access and trading political favors. The Trump Foundation has no paid board, no management fees, no rent or overhead, and no family members on its payroll.”
The statement goes on to suggest there was never “any intent or motive for the Trump Foundation to make improper payments,” and that “contributions are reported to the IRS, and all Foundation donations are publicly disclosed.” Yet none of these assertions directly address what Fahrenthold turned up, nor do they respond to the latter’s assertion that what occurred were several cases of illegal “self-dealing.”
(Via Donald J. Trump Campaign)
