The Washington Post defended its reporters on Thursday after President Donald Trump bashed them over the paper’s new report about him and Attorney General Bill Barr.
“The Post fully stands behind its story and its reporters, who are among the finest journalists anywhere,” Marty Baron, the Post’s executive editor, said in a statement. “The president continues to make false accusations against news organizations and individual journalists.”
“Despite his repugnant attempt to intimidate and harass The Post and its staff, we will continue to do the work that democracy demands of a free and independent press,” he continued.
Baron issued the statement an hour after Trump attacked Post reporters Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey and Carol Leonnig, whom the President called “lowlife reporters.”
Trump had flown into a rage after they reported that he had asked Barr to hold a press conference declaring that he had not broken any laws when he asked the Ukrainian president to investigate 2020 rival Joe Biden and right-wing conspiracy about a DNC server.
The President responded to the report on Thursday morning with a series of furious tweets claiming that the “degenerate Washington Post” had “MADE UP” 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,” he ranted. “We both deny this story, which they knew before they wrote it. A garbage newspaper!”
