President Trump strengthened unfounded claims on Thursday that the government had paid news media to generate positive reporting about Democrats.
The conspiracy theories seem to have been generated by records that show payments for something much more harmless: subscriptions.
Mr. Trump said on his truth social site that “billions of dollars” from USAID and other agencies had gone incorrect to the “fake news media”. He spread a claim that Polico, a 'left -wing rag', had received $ 8 million and wondered if the New York Times and other stores had also received payments.
Users on X tried this week to make a connection between wage costs that was reported at Poloo and the dismantling by the administration of USAID, the foreign aid agency. Some users started sharing screenshots that seemed to show federal payments to polico.
Records about USASSPEENPEN.GOV, a federal site that follows government payments, show that federal agencies have paid polico agencies for subscriptions, including to its Police Pro Service. Polito Pro offers policy -related resources and follows news and legislation, and has more than 30,000 subscribers, according to an overview of Poloo.
USAID paid $ 44,000 in polico during the tax years of 2023 and 2024, according to the expenditure records, which described the two contracts as for “E&E News subscriptions”. E&E News deals with energy and environmental issues.
John Harris, editor -in -chief of Policro, and Goli Sheikholeslami, the Chief Executive, said in a memo of employees on Wednesday that the news organization “never been a beneficiary of government programs or subsidies – not one cent, ever, in 18 years.”
“As a practical issue, the vast majority of our professional subscriptions under Politico Pro in the private sector,” said the memo.
Polrico said it had no further comment outside the memo of Mr Harris and Mrs. Sheikholeslami.
Agencies under the Trump government have also paid for subscriptions, according to the data. For example, the executive office of the President in 2017 set aside $ 97,720 for payment for polico.
Nevertheless, the payments raised conspiracy theories on those Trump officials and other conservative voices. Elon Musk, the head of a team that wanted to lower government spending, said on Wednesday that the payments “were not efficient use of taxpayers.”
The White House also appealed to the conspiracy on Wednesday, with his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, and said that more than $ 8 million had gone to buying polico subscriptions.
“The Doge team is working to cancel those payments now,” she said. “We are in line with the rule when it comes to the books of the federal government.”
Mr. Musk responded to a user who in 2020 noticed a payment of $ 517,855 from the Food and Drug Administration for Politico Pro subscriptions. “These wasteful editions are removed,” he added.
In his all-caps post on Thursday, Mr. Trump wrote: “This could be the biggest scandal of all, perhaps the biggest in history!”
Benjamin Mullin contributed reporting.
