https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/27/1972906/--Please-be-advised-White-House-threatens-reporter-writing-story-on-Trump-s-corruption
Farenthold won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for his coverage of the now defunct Donald J.Trump Foundation which exposed that particular organization as a sham charity from its foundation, and also led to its forcible shut down.
More recently Farenthold has written about Trump's eponymous company charging the U.S. government (i.e. taxpayers) nearly a million dollars in room rentals and resort fees. Precisely how much in total the U.S. government has paid to Trump's properties, remains unknown, partly because neither the White House nor Trump Org has disclosed the transactions.
It was already known after barely a year into the Trump presidency, that the Secret Service had to ask Congress for extra financial subventions after running clean out of money thanks to Trump’s endless w/e golfing trips to Mar-a-Lago where the SS agents were charged through the nose for accommodation and the use of golf carts on the fairways.
The Washington Post reported that “taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $900,000 since he took office. At least $570,000 came as a result of the president’s travel,” and that “documents show that the Trump Organization charged daily ‘resort fees’ to Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Pence in Las Vegas and in another instance asked agents to pay a $1,300 ‘furniture removal charge’ during a presidential visit to a Trump resort in Scotland.”
“The Trump Organization charged rates as high as $650 per night for rooms at Mar-a-Lago and $17,000 per month for a cottage at President Trump’s club in Bedminster, N.J.,” the Post revealed, citing “previously released federal receipts and two people who have seen nonpublic records.”
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/wh-spox-threatens-wapos-david-farenthold-with-very-large-dossier-rebutting-his-work-after-latest-story-on-taxpayer-cash-going-to-trump-resorts/
As of Thursday Trump had had enough it seems, and Farenthold found himself being threatened by the White House Deputy Press Secretary and Special Assistant Judd Deere:
The Washington Post is blatantly interfering with the business relationships of the Trump Organization, and it must stop,” Deere wrote in his statement. “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.”
In other words, the stories are completely true, and president Trump is once again trampling all over the First Amendment by threatening a reporter for simply doing his job.
