Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the leftist organ The Atlantic, was slapped down by the sister of the late Spc. Vanessa Guillen, after he quoted President Donald J. Trump as disparaging the murdered soldier’s death and refusing to pay the funeral expenses as he promised.
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“My sister’s death was never to be politicized. Unbelievable,” said Mayra Guillen in an X-post.
The specialist was reported missing in April 2020 from her duty station at Fort Hood, Texas, and her remains were recovered on June 30, 2020.
Then, the sister quote-posted from The Atlantic’s own X-post a more detailed explanation of her disgust at Goldberg.
“I don’t appreciate how you are exploiting my sister’s death for politics- hurtful & disrespectful to the important changes she made for service members,” she said. “President Donald Trump did nothing but show respect to my family & Vanessa. In fact, I voted for President Trump today.”
In his piece posted today, “Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had,'” Goldberg claimed to have eyewitness accounts from a Dec. 4, 2020, national security meeting at the White House, which was wrapping up when Trump was supposed to have asked if the family had billed him for the funeral expenses—a pledge he made to the family months earlier—and if so, what was the charge:
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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 f**king 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. “F**king 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.
This calls to mind Goldberg’s infamous fable, when he told his readers in a Sept. 3, 2020, piece, “Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’” that Trump ridiculed fallen warriors when the decision was made not to visit the Belleau Wood military cemetery in France during the centennial commemoration of the end of World War I.
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.
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A senior Army officer traveling with the president that day told RedState the trip to Belleau Wood, which is sacred to the Marines, was scrubbed because the foul weather grounded the helicopters.
Without helicopters, the president and his entourage would be a slow-moving motorcade on country roads for 45 minutes, a target too rich to provide to an adversary—coupled with the fact that without helicopters, there could be no medevac by air if something happened.
Trump’s White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, also supported the Guillen account.
“I was in the discussions featured in the Atlantic’s latest hit piece against President Trump. Let me say this: Any suggestion that President Trump disparaged Ms. Guillen or refused to pay for her funeral expenses is absolutely false,” said the former North Carolina Republican congressman.
Trump was respectful at all times, he said.
“He was nothing but kind, gracious, and wanted to make sure that the military and the U.S. government did right by Vanessa Guillen and her family,” said the former House Freedom Caucus chairman.
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RedState spoke to Ben Williamson, a senior staffer to Meadows at the White House. Williamson said he provided Goldberg with a statement that the Atlantic editor-in-chief deliberately distorted to fit his narrative — as seen in this side-by-side comparison of Williamson’s text and Goldberg’s prose:
Williamson told RedState he was not at the meeting, but gave Goldberg the statement as seen in blue at the direction of Meadows.
Bizarrely, Goldberg took the statement from Williamson and wrote it as if it was a confirmation of what Trump was purported to have said — only Meadows was out of earshot.
Update – 8:20 PM Eastern:
The family’s attorney, Natalie Khawam, has now weighed in and absolutely destroyed Goldberg’s claims.
After having dealt with hundreds of reporters in my legal career, this is unfortunately the first time I have to go on record and call out Jeffrey Goldberg@the Atlantic: not only did he misrepresent our conversation but he outright LIED in HIS sensational story. More importantly, he used and exploited my clients, and Vanessa Guillen’s murder… for cheap political gain.
I would like to also point out that the timing of this “story” is quite suspicious, as this supposed conversation that Trump had would have occurred over 4 years ago! Why a story about it now?!
As everyone knows, not only did Trump support our military, he also invited my clients to the Oval Office and supported the I Am Vanessa Guillen bill too.
I’m grateful we were successful in getting bipartisan support of the I Am Vanessa Guillen Act, and because of everyone’s hard work and efforts our service members now have more protections and rights while serving our country.
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Update – 9:05 PM Eastern:
Theo Wold, Former Deputy Assistant to President Trump, who was at Trump’s meeting with the Guillén family “because [he] assisted with translation” has also publicly called Goldberg’s piece “a lie” in a post on X, writing:
I was at President Trump’s meeting with the Guillén family because I assisted with translation that day. President Trump was genuinely concerned about Vanessa Guillén and appalled by the tragedy the Guillén Family were enduring.
@mguilen_ was poised and confident in advocating for her sister then and she’s right again today: The Atlantic hit piece is a lie. For example, President Trump had zero interest in the cameras. He met with the Guillén family privately for twenty minutes and offered the press gaggle solely if it would assist them in honoring Army Specialist Guillén and raising awareness about her case. He even told them that day that the press are vipers.Boy was President Trump right.