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And Now The Atlantic Might Become Engulfed in a Journalistic Scandal for This Fake Story

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  October 23, 2024 6:30 AM

This incident is entertaining but also ghoulish. You want to cheer the demise of a facially untrue liberal media narrative, though it also involves the death of an American service member. The Atlantic is back to its usual game of trying to manufacture a total myth to damage Donald Trump. The publication was the source for the infamous and equally false ‘losers and suckers’ lie in 2020. 

The headline for this tall tale goes as follows: “Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had.’”  Yet, the lede is about the grisly death of U.S. Army Specialist Vanessa Guillén, who was murdered by another soldier, Aaron David Robinson, who bludgeoned her to death in 2020. Her remains were later dismembered and burned by Robinson, who later committed suicide, and his accomplice Cecily Aguilar: 

Guillén, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, grew up in Houston, and her murder sparked outrage across Texas and beyond. Fort Hood had become known as a particularly perilous assignment for female soldiers, and members of Congress took up the cause of reform. Shortly after her remains were discovered, President Donald Trump himself invited the Guillén family to the White House. With Guillén’s mother seated beside him, Trump spent 25 minutes with the family as television cameras recorded the scene. 

In the meeting, Trump maintained a dignified posture and expressed sympathy to Guillén’s mother. “I saw what happened to your daughter Vanessa, who was a spectacular person, and respected and loved by everybody, including in the military,” Trump said. Later in the conversation, he made a promise: “If I can help you out with the funeral, I’ll help—I’ll help you with that,” he said. “I’ll help you out. Financially, I’ll help you.” 

[…] 

In an Oval Office meeting on December 4, 2020, officials gathered to discuss a separate national-security issue. Toward the end of the discussion, Trump asked for an update on the McCarthy investigation. Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of defense (Trump had fired his predecessor, Mark Esper, three weeks earlier, writing in a tweet, “Mark Esper has been terminated”), was in attendance, along with Miller’s chief of staff, Kash Patel. At a certain point, according to two people present at the meeting, Trump asked, “Did they bill us for the funeral? What did it cost?” 

According to attendees, and to contemporaneous notes of the meeting taken by a participant, an aide answered: Yes, we received a bill; the funeral cost $60,000. 

Trump became angry. “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: “Don’t pay it!” Later that day, he was still agitated. “Can you believe it?” he said, according to a witness. “Fucking people, trying to rip me off.” 

Khawam, the family attorney, told me she sent the bill to the White House, but no money was ever received by the family from Trump. Some of the costs, Khawam said, were covered by the Army (which offered, she said, to allow Guillén to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery) and some were covered by donations. Ultimately, Guillén was buried in Houston. 

Only a Trump-deranged lunatic would believe this myth. The kill shot came from Guillen’s sister, Maya, who expressed disgust that Vanessa’s death would be exploited to score political points. She also said that Trump “did nothing but show respect to my family & Vanessa. In fact, I voted for President Trump today.” 

Get wrecked, Atlantic. The headline, the lede—it’s just so outrageous that we don’t even need to get to the Hitler part. It’s all been said before, and we know it’s a total lie. If the lede is shoddy, so is the rest of this shambolic hit job. What a circus.

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UPDATE: The family attorney said Golberg lied. Do I smell a lawsuit and another journalistic scandal?