‘Libelous’ NYT report tying Trump family to government-backed deal sparks legal demand
EXCLUSIVE: The Trump Organization is demanding the New York Times retract a story it calls 'libelous' and claims was deliberately crafted to suggest financial impropriety by Donald Trump Jr. and...
By Fox News · Fox News
EXCLUSIVE: The Trump Organization is demanding the New York Times retract a story it calls 'libelous' and claims was deliberately crafted to suggest financial impropriety by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump , according to a legal letter obtained by Fox News Digital. The letter stems from a Times story published this week titled "Trump Cut a Billion-Dollar Mining Deal. His Sons Stand to Profit," which ties the elder Trump brothers and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's sons to a tungsten deal secured by President Donald Trump with Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in September 2025. "Your June 28 article is deeply misleading and appears deliberately crafted to create the false impression that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were involved in, or sought to influence, the decision to award the Kazakhstan tungsten mine project to an affiliate of Cove Capital," Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten writes in a letter to The Times. THOMAS, GORSUCH TARGET LANDMARK RULING TRUMP SAYS PROTECTS THE 'FAKE NEWS' The letter is addressed to The Times' editor-in-chief Joseph Kahn, along with the authors of the story, Eric Lipton and Paul Sonne. "As your own reporting and interviews with those involved all clearly demonstrate, that implication is demonstrably false," the letter continues. A spokesperson for The New York Times defended its reporting and addressed the letter by telling Fox News Digital: "The Trump Organization does not deny the main point of our story: That Eric and Donald Jr. have profited from the U.S.-Kazakh tungsten mining agreement." "The letter mainly disputes whether the article gave enough prominence to the fact that the brothers were indirect and passive investors — a point that is clearly set out in the story," NYT's Executive Director of Media Relations Charlie Stadtlander added in the statement. Tungsten is a mineral used by the United States to develop military equipment, including missiles and fighter jets. Currently, China, Russia and North K…