POLITICO published a bombshell story last Friday alleging that President Donald Trump owed tens of millions of dollars to the Bank of China stemming from a real estate deal brokered with the Trump Organization in 2012. According to POLITICO, the borrowed funds were scheduled to be paid back in 2022, and they phrased their headline “Trump owes tens of millions to the Bank of China – and the loan is due soon.”
It’s crazy that despite all the exhaustive inquiries into Trump’s finances this wasn’t reported before – though it quickly became evident the reason no one else had reported this is because it isn’t true. As The Federalist’s Tristan Justice notes:
Trump’s “tens of millons” in debt held by the bank however, is non-existent, and was sold off by the China-owned financial institution shortly after the deal. Even worse, Politico admitted their reporters never reached out to the bank to inquire about the loans.
“Politico received a statement from a representative for Bank of China USA, which had not been contacted beforehand, that the bank had sold off, or securitized, its debt shortly after the 2012 deal.” Politico wrote in an editor’s note. “A spokeswoman said the bank has no current financial interest in any Trump Organization properties.”
“Politico attempted to reach other parties to the refinancing throughout the weekend and Monday,” the editors wrote. “Consequently, the story was updated a second time on Monday evening to take account of the apparent mistake in the public record.”
This may be the first time I’ve seen a publication give an “apparent” retraction, though their editors do tell us that “Our commitment at POLITICO is to journalism that gets its facts straight. We regret we fell short in this case.”
Given how the media has handled the Spygate scandal, Michael Flynn case, allegations against Biden, among countless other stories, I’m sure it will happen again.
