My RedState colleague Bonchie wrote over the weekend about how Politico had to issue a major correction on a supposed bombshell report that originally alleged that President Trump was “tens of millions of dollars in debt to China.”
To quickly recap, here is what they initially reported Friday:
Donald Trump is warning “China will own the United States” if Joe Biden is elected president.
But Trump himself is tens of millions of dollars in debt to China: In 2012, his real estate partner refinanced one of Trump’s most prized New York buildings for almost $1 billion. The debt includes $211 million from the state-owned Bank of China — its first loan of this kind in the U.S. — which matures in the middle of what could be Trump’s second term, financial records show.
The news outlet, however, had to update their hit piece the next day with this information, which undercut a significant chunk of their piece:
After the first version of this article was published, the Bank of China issued a statement Friday evening stating that it sold its debt on the building weeks after the 2012 loan on the property. Vornado Realty Trust owns 70 percent of the building.
Even with that very important update, Politico still held out hope that they had a solid report by pointing to a 2017 Wells Fargo document:
Another public document, however, lists Bank of China as a creditor on 1290 Avenue of the Americas even after the bank said it was no longer involved in the property. Filed in 2017 with the New York City Department of Finance Office of the Register, it lists the Bank of China as a secured party having a financial interest in the building’s fixtures — such as air conditioning systems and toilets — in case of default on the loan.
But as it turns out, Wells Fargo confirmed Bank of China’s statement this week. As a result, Politico has published a separate statement on the piece, once again acknowledging their initial error, while noting another error, which they blamed on “an apparent mistake in the public record.”:
POLITICO attempted to reach other parties to the refinancing throughout the weekend and Monday. Wells Fargo on Monday confirmed the Bank of China’s statement that it had been listed as a creditor on the building in error. Bank of China said Wells Fargo is taking steps to correct the record with an updated filing.
Consequently, the story was updated a second time on Monday evening to take account of the apparent mistake in the public record.
Our commitment at POLITICO is to journalism that gets its facts straight. We regret we fell short in this case.
“Fell short”? That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one. Politico jumped the gun on this “report” without doing thorough due diligence on what they were alleging.
They should delete the entire phony report, but they won’t, because the “fake but accurate” rules are in full effect with the mainstream press at all times when it comes to erroneous and/or contrived reports attacking Republicans, especially during an election year.
