Former US President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up in the spin room following the second presidential debate at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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ABC News deleted a report criticizing the business dealings of President Donald Trump’s oldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, on Thursday after facing legal threats but has failed to provide any explanation or editor’s note for the vanished “hit piece.”
The now-deleted report, which can still be viewed via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, was published Wednesday with the headline, “Trump sons’ investments have won billions in Pentagon contracts since his election,” and said Anduril, the company investing in a new Baltimore shipyard, had ties to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
“1789 Capital — a venture capital firm that lists Donald Trump Jr. as one of six partners along with three founders — claimed a major stake in Anduril in June 2025 from a $2.5 billion investment into the company,” ABC News reported in the deleted story.
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Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. (Leigh Vogel/Getty Images)
“Since that investment, Anduril has been awarded 135 other contracts with the U.S. government and to date has received around $1.8 billion from those agreements, according to active defense contracts posted to SAM.gov, the official system for government contracting. “The company is one of the largest manufacturers to receive an investment from Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric Trump, but they are not the only one.”
1789 Capital spokesperson Alexa Henning, a former chief of staff to the Director of National Intelligence, took to social media, insisting the company does not have a “major stake” in Anduril and blasting the “biased hit piece.”
“Here’s a small lesson, that I also explained to ABC, the ‘reporter’ who is a complete idiot conflated raising funds with investment by 1789. Those are two separate actions,” Henning wrote.
“Meaning the ‘investments’ mentioned were actually the total number raised for a funding round, that MANY companies contribute to,” Henning continued. “Another thing that the reporter buried the lead on was that many of these companies have gotten government contracts during Biden AND Trump, which completely negates the assertion by ABC that Don Jr and Eric Trump are doing anything wrong.”
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ABC News deleted a report criticizing the business dealings of President Donald Trump’s oldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, on Thursday after facing legal threats.
Shortly after, ABC News deleted the story from its website. The link to the original report now states, “This page either does not exist or is currently unavailable.”
ABC News did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The network has not issued a correction or provided a public explanation for why the report was removed from its website.
ABC News also deleted a viral X post intended to promote the story that was shared by several prominent Democrats.
Henning spoke to Fox News Digital after ABC News deleted the story. She said that in addition to calling out the story publicly on X, she sent a detailed email to ABC News pointing out mistakes in the reporting and informing the Disney-owned network that lawyers would be in touch if action was not taken.
She “really appreciates that they took it down,” but wants a clear explanation of why it was published in the first place and believes ABC News should inform readers of its errors.
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ABC News deleted a “hit piece” report criticizing the business dealings of President Donald Trump’s oldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. (Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
Henning also told Fox News Digital that ABC News never asked 1789 Capital for comment prior to the story’s initial publication, despite being mentioned several times in the initial report.
“The majority of people reporting on 1789 do not fundamentally understand how it works,” she said.
Once the story had vanished, Trump Jr. responded to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had shared the initial ABC News report on X.
“ABC deleted this article in less than 24 hours because it’s false. Sounds about as long as your presidential campaign would last,” Trump Jr. wrote.
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Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.