Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold spent months doggedly trying to get the State Department to release information about how much money it had spent at President Donald Trump's properties.
However, as he documents in a new piece, he and his colleagues were met with relentless stonewalling by Foggy Bottom.
First, he shows how they asked State Department eight months ago for information about payments to Trump properties and were promptly ignored for three weeks.
They then went to the State Department's press office, which offered to give them information about the payments "off the record," which meant they would not be allowed to use it in any story.
The Post reporters declined this information and proceeded to file a lawsuit against the State Department to receive the documents it had requested.
On October 15th, the department relented and said it would release more information -- but then released a meager two pages.
"Instead of revealing the full history of the State Department’s taxpayer-funded payments to the sitting president’s businesses, the records showed a single $8,300 payment to Trump’s golf club in Ireland," Fahrenthold writes. "The president’s daughter-in-law had visited the club in 2019. The club had charged the Secret Service for agents to follow her — following a common pattern, in which travel by Trump’s children and their families forced the government to spend money at Trump properties."
Fahrenthold eventually took to Twitter and asked if anyone -- anyone at all -- had access to these documents.
Shortly after, an unnamed source provided them.
