ABC SCREWED UP Trump Hit Piece – They Just DELETED It

Photo: Piotr Swat / Shutterstock

ABC News published a story claiming Trump family-linked defense firms scored over $6 billion in Pentagon contracts, then quietly deleted the whole thing without any explanation.

Story Snapshot

ABC News reported that companies backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump landed more than $6 billion in active or promised government contracts since the brothers invested.
The article vanished from ABC’s website within 24 hours, replaced by an “Oops! Page unavailable” message, with no editor’s note or correction posted.
Separate reporting from The Washington Post and a Senate Democrats report found similar numbers, putting direct contracts closer to $3.2 billion plus future options.
Critics on the right call the piece a politically timed hit job; the underlying financial ties to companies like Anduril and Powerus are not seriously disputed.

What ABC Reported Before It Vanished

ABC News ran an analysis claiming defense companies tied to President Trump’s sons had pulled in more than $6 billion in government contracts since the brothers put money into them. The report named Anduril Industries, where Donald Trump Jr.’s investment firm 1789 Capital holds a major stake, as the biggest piece of that total. It also flagged smaller firms like Powerus and Unusual Machines as examples of companies that saw new government business line up shortly after a Trump son got involved.

Within a day, the story was gone. Readers trying to find it hit a dead link and an error message instead of a correction or retraction notice. That kind of silent deletion is rare for a major outlet. Newsrooms usually explain why a story disappears, whether it’s a legal issue, a sourcing problem, or an editorial mistake. ABC offered none of that, and the silence is exactly what fueled accusations that the piece couldn’t hold up.

The Numbers Behind the Pentagon Contracts

ABC’s count wasn’t invented from nothing. The Washington Post ran its own investigation months earlier and found at least $3.2 billion in direct government business flowing to about 15 companies tied to the Trump sons’ investment firms, with another $3.1 billion in future contract options on the table. A Senate Democrats report cited the same Washington Post figures, and Senator Elizabeth Warren pushed the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate.

House Oversight Democrats sent their own letter to the Defense Department’s internal watchdog in May, pointing out that contracts kept landing at firms right after Eric Trump or Donald Trump Jr. joined as investors or advisers. None of that proves wrongdoing by itself. Companies can legitimately win contracts based on merit, and most of the firms named already had federal work before the Trump sons ever got involved.

Why the Deletion Raises Real Questions

Conservative commentators argued ABC’s deletion was proof the story was false, calling it a hit job that collapsed under its own weak reporting. That’s a fair point worth weighing, but it’s worth separating two different questions. One is whether ABC’s specific $6 billion figure and methodology held up. The other is whether the broader pattern of Trump family investments lining up with Pentagon money is real. The second question has independent backing well beyond ABC alone.

A Trump family spokesperson has pushed back directly, saying the sons “have no role whatsoever in the awarding, oversight, or management of any government contracts”. That denial deserves to be taken seriously, especially since many of the companies in question had government work long before any Trump money arrived. Still, an unexplained deletion from a major network looks bad, and ABC owes readers a real accounting of what went wrong instead of a dead link.

The honest takeaway here is that sloppy, agenda-driven reporting and legitimate conflict-of-interest questions can exist at the same time. ABC’s botched handling of this story doesn’t erase the fact that multiple independent outlets and lawmakers from both parties have flagged the same contracts for review. Americans deserve a Pentagon inspector general answer, not a media outlet’s silent cleanup job.

ABC News identified more than $6 BILLION in active or promised government contracts involving defense companies backed by Trump’s sons.

AND shortly after, ABC deleted the article. Hmmmm… wonder why?

CORRUPTION: Their crooked father leads the administration awarding the…

— Morgan J. Freeman (@mjfree) October 8, 2026

Whatever the Pentagon’s watchdog eventually finds, ABC’s vanishing act has already become its own story, a reminder that credibility in journalism depends as much on how outlets handle mistakes as on the facts they first report.