White House announces plan to compile dossier on Washington Post journalists
First posted January 27, 2021 12:48pm EST
Last updated February 14, 2021 11:16pm EST
All Associated Themes:
- National Security
- Press
- Professional Consequences
External References
Trump campaign sues CNN over ‘false reporting’ in op-ed, The Guardian
White House says it is creating ‘very large’ dossier on Washington Post journalist and others, CNN
The President, the Press, and the Dossier, Legal Talk Network
White House Building ‘Dossier’ On Journalist Covering Trump Private Businesses, Forbes
Trump Campaign Sues New York Times Over 2019 Opinion Article, The New York Times
Trump Allies Target Journalists Over Coverage Deemed Hostile to White House, The New York Times
New York Times shreds Trump Campaign lawsuit over Russia op-ed, The Washington Post
On Aug. 27, 2020, White House spokesperson Judd Deere released a statement saying he was compiling a dossier on multiple Washington Post journalists accused of spreading false information to the U.S. public. Despite the press release, such a White House dossier never emerged, officially or unofficially.
Key Players
Judson “Judd” Deere was a political adviser who served as special assistant to President Donald Trump and as deputy press secretary in the White House.
David Fahrenthold is a journalist for The Post who is also a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for reporting that cast doubt on Trump’s claim that he, out of his own pocket, and The Donald J. Trump Foundation had donated millions of dollars to veterans charities and other philanthropic projects. Fahrenthold’s report showed that Trump donated a smaller sum of money than he publicly claimed, and cast doubt on the legitimacy of The Donald J. Trump Foundation, which New York Attorney General Letitia James later found to be a fraud.
Josh Dawsey is a White House reporter for The Post, and a political analyst for CNN.
Joshua Partlow is a national and foreign affairs correspondent for The Post.
Further Details
On Aug. 27, 2020, after The Post published Fahrenthold, Dawsey, and Partlow’s article detailing that the Trump Organization had charged the U.S. government more than $900,000 for hotel rooms, resort fees, furniture removal charges, and other fees at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, Deere issued a White House statement accusing the newspaper of “blatantly interfering with the business relationships of the Trump Organization,” CNN reported.
In the statement, Deere also wrote that the White House would be creating a dossier of “the many false” stories written by Fahrenthold and other journalists during the Trump presidency. Neither Deere nor any other member of the White House press office responded to CNN’s requests for comment on the dossier. Fahrenthold spoke little of the supposed dossier other than a tweet requesting it be sent to him if compiled.
Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor and frequent guest commentator on Legal Talk Network, commented during a podcast that ordering The Post to stop reporting on Trump’s business interests would likely result in a “claim that could be filed in federal court, the civil rights claim that the ability of Americans — journalists — to exercise their First Amendment rights, is being compromised by the threats.”
Fahrenthold would not be the first reporter whom the Trump White House or Trump campaign targeted. In 2019, The New York Times published an article detailing the creation of dossiers on journalists — many of whom were accused of misreporting — by those close to the White House. This information was spread by White House officials as well as Trump himself. The Guardian reported that the Trump campaign also filed a libel lawsuit in March 2020 in federal court in Georgia against CNN, over allegedly false reporting related to the campaign’s ties to the Russian government. Similarly, in February 2020 the Trump campaign filed a libel lawsuit against The Post in federal court in Washington, after an opinion piece released six months prior called out Trump for saying he would listen if foreign governments offered incriminating information on his opponents. After a 2019 opinion piece detailed collusion between Trump and Russia, the Trump campaign subsequently sued The New York Times for libel in March 2020 in New York State Court in Manhattan. In July 2020, The Times filed to dismiss the lawsuit on grounds that the article in question was a statement of opinion, rather than fact, The Post reported.
Outcome
White House refuses to comment in months following incident
No dossier was ever released by the White House. But Farenthold, in response to the aforementioned statement from Deere, did post a second tweet calling for community feedback should anyone believe The Post had misreported something.