Trump accuses The Washington Post of fabricating facts about covert CIA program, being a 'lobbyist weapon'

(Image credit: Pool/Getty Images)

published 25 July 2017

During a late night Twitter session on Monday, President Trump appeared to confirm a Washington Post report that his administration ended a covert CIA program that armed moderate anti-government rebels fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad...." Trump tweeted, referring to a story published by the Post last week about his decision to stop the program, handing a big win to Russia and Assad.

While he did not elaborate on how the Post allegedly "fabricated the facts," he did go on to share his conspiracy theory that the newspaper's owner, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is using the Post to bully politicians into not taxing the online retailer. "So many stories about me in the @washingtonpost are Fake News," he tweeted. "They are as bad as ratings challenged @CNN. Lobbyist for Amazon and taxes?" A few minutes later, he added, "Is Fake News Washington Post being used as a lobbyist weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly?"

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.