President Trump insulted the Washington Post journalists who published a story alleging the president wanted Attorney General William Barr to hold a press conference declaring him innocent of any wrongdoing in regards to the impeachment proceedings.
The president addressed the story, which claims that Trump has expressed his belief that Barr should’ve held the press conference to associates in recent weeks, in multiple tweets on Thursday morning, first going after them for basing their story on anonymous sources.
“Bill Barr did not decline my request to talk about Ukraine. The story was a Fake Washington Post con job with an ‘anonymous’ source that doesn’t exist. Just read the Transcript. The Justice Department already ruled that the call was good. We don’t have freedom of the press!” the president tweeted. “The degenerate Washington Post MADE UP the story about me asking Bill Barr to hold a news conference,” he said. “Never happened, and there were no sources!”
[Read: ‘MADE UP’: Trump denies story claiming he asked Barr to hold news conference]
Bill Barr did not decline my request to talk about Ukraine. The story was a Fake Washington Post con job with an “anonymous” source that doesn’t exist. Just read the Transcript. The Justice Department already ruled that the call was good. We don’t have freedom of the press!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2019
In a tweet an hour later, the president went after the reporters behind the story.
“The Amazon Washington Post and three lowlife reporters, Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey, and Carol Leonnig, wrote another Fake News story, without any sources (pure fiction), about Bill Barr & myself. We both deny this story, which they knew before they wrote it,” Trump tweeted. “A garbage newspaper!”
The Radical Left Dems and LameStream Media are just trying to make it hard for Republicans and me to win in 2020. The new Impeachment Hoax is already turning against them!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2019
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley downplayed the report and said Trump “has nothing but respect for AG Barr and greatly appreciates the work he’s done on behalf of the country.”
Following the president’s tweets, New York Times‘s Maggie Haberman confirmed the Washington Post‘s reporting about Trump’s apparent request of Barr.
“A) they’re all great reporters B) the story was true C) Last time POTUS had this extensive a tirade was around Comey dismissal. Comey – who wouldn’t publicly clear Trump’s name at his request – was fired and that promoted Rosenstein to name Mueller,” she tweeted.
A) they’re all great reporters B) the story was true C) Last time POTUS had this extensive a tirade was around Comey dismissal. Comey – who wouldn’t publicly clear Trump’s name at his request – was fired and that promoted Rosenstein to name Mueller. https://t.co/HQZT9umaXB
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 7, 2019
The request is similar to when Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey to publicly declare he was not the subject of Russia’s investigation back in 2017, according to Comey’s memos from the time.
