This is a story about how a single article, built on shaky facts, can shake a family, a firm, and a major news network. It begins with ABC News, one of the most trusted names in American journalism, publishing a report about President Donald Trump’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. The story claimed that the two brothers had leveraged their father’s political power to secure billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts, and it singled out the venture capital firm 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. serves as a partner. The report was explosive, and it spread quickly. But almost as soon as it appeared, it began to fall apart. The numbers were wrong. The interpretation of the investments was wrong. And before readers could understand what had happened, the article was deleted without a word of explanation. For Alexa Henning, the spokesperson for 1789 Capital, the experience has been a painful lesson in how quickly falsehoods can travel and how slowly truth catches up. She says the firm’s lawyers are fully engaged and no legal options are off the table. “We still have our attorneys completely plugged into this, and we’re not taking options off the table because they can’t get away with writing completely false things and hit jobs,” she said. “We’re not gonna back down. We’re gonna keep calling them out and make sure that people know the truth.” Her words carry the weariness of someone who has spent days fighting an uphill battle against a powerful institution.
The original article, still preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, was published under the headline “Trump sons’ investments have won billions in Pentagon contracts since his election.” It claimed that companies connected to Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. had won billions of dollars in government contracts, and it zeroed in on 1789 Capital’s relationship with Anduril Industries, a defense technology company. According to the original story, 1789 Capital had acquired a major stake in Anduril through a $2.5 billion investment. That figure was entirely misleading. The $2.5 billion represented the broader fundraising round that Anduril had conducted, not the amount invested by 1789 Capital. The firm’s actual investment was approximately $50 million, a significant sum but nowhere near the massive windfall the article implied. The distinction is crucial, because the original story suggested that Donald Trump Jr. and his brother were quietly profiting from billions in defense spending, a narrative that carried enormous political consequences. When ABC News deleted the article without explanation and then republished a substantially revised version days later, the revised story included a new headline about a shipyard announcement, a clarification that Donald Trump Jr. does not serve on the firm’s investment decision-making committee, and an editor’s note acknowledging “errors.” But the note did not specify what those errors were, nor did it apologize. Henning called the outcome insufficient. She wants ABC News to be transparent with its audience about exactly what went wrong and why the original story should never have been published in the first place.
What made this episode feel particularly harmful was the speed with which the false narrative spread before any correction could catch up. The original story went viral on social media, and high-profile Democrats, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, were among those who shared it. People who would never have read the full article saw the headline and drew conclusions about the Trump family’s corruption and greed. The damage was not limited to the public sphere. For Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the false story reopened old wounds and gave new life to accusations that they were trading on their father’s name for financial gain. Henning said ABC News never asked 1789 Capital for comment prior to publishing the original story, a basic journalistic step that could have prevented the most obvious errors. When she raised objections, she says an ABC journalist “vigorously defended” the report. Then, without warning, the story disappeared. The silence was telling. Instead of explaining what had happened, ABC News allowed speculation to fill the void. Some media outlets, citing unnamed sources, reported that the story had been “published prematurely” or was undergoing routine editorial review. Henning dismissed those claims outright. “I knew that was also a lie because that was not told to me the day the story went up — the editor fully stood by it,” she said. “They know they were wrong. They just don’t want to admit it.” For anyone who has ever felt gaslit by a powerful institution, her frustration is easy to understand.
The controversy also carries the weight of history. ABC News and President Donald Trump have clashed for years, and in 2024 Trump reached a $16 million settlement with the network to resolve a defamation lawsuit after anchor George Stephanopoulos falsely stated on air that Trump had been found liable for “rape” in a civil case involving writer E. Jean Carroll. That settlement sent shockwaves through the media industry and made clear that ABC News was vulnerable to legal consequences when its reporting crossed the line. Henning believes the latest episode is part of a broader pattern. “ABC has a long history of doing this to the president and his family,” she said. She attributes the botched article to a combination of “laziness” and a desire to get “a good hit on the Trump family.” She also believes the network assumed there would be no pushback. “They just didn’t think they would get push back,” she said. But they were wrong. Henning said she has heard from “multiple people inside ABC” who privately acknowledge that the story was a massive mess-up. The fact that current employees are willing to voice their concerns anonymously shows a deep discomfort with how the story was handled. Henning’s criticism extends beyond the network’s motivations to the professional competence of its reporting. “If you don’t understand investments in venture capital growth, you shouldn’t be reporting on it,” she argued. “When you’re a reporter, you should want to understand what you’re reporting on.” For her, the errors were not subtle differences of interpretation. They were fundamental misunderstandings of how investment rounds work.
The legal and regulatory implications are still unfolding. Senator Bernie Moreno, a Republican from Ohio, has called on the Federal Communications Commission to investigate what led to the erroneous report. An FCC investigation would force ABC News to answer tough questions about its editorial process, fact-checking standards and the chain of decisions that led to publication, deletion and republication. At the same time, 1789 Capital’s lawyers have been in contact with both ABC News and Disney, the network’s parent company. Henning said the firm is monitoring all subsequent coverage and has not ruled out a lawsuit. “We’re still monitoring the coverage and still monitoring what they say, so we’ll see,” she said. The possibility of legal action is not theoretical. To win a defamation case, a public figure must prove that the publisher acted with actual malice, meaning the network knew the story was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Henning’s repeated insistence that ABC News ignored basic questions, refused to seek comment, and defended the story before deleting it could be used to support that standard. The fact that ABC previously settled with Trump for $16 million also demonstrates the financial risk of inaccurate reporting about the president and his family. Even if the revised article fixed the most glaring errors, the original version remains accessible through the Internet Archive, preserving evidence of exactly what was published. In the current media climate, a single mistake can define a news organization for years, especially when the false version of the story has already shaped public perception.
At its core, this saga is about accountability and the human cost of misinformation. The people at the center of the false report—Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and their colleagues at 1789 Capital—were forced to defend themselves against accusations built on errors. They watched as politicians, journalists and ordinary internet users embraced a story that was demonstrably wrong. They then watched as the network that published the story tried to remove it quietly, as if it had never existed. Henning is adamant that this cannot be the end. She wants ABC News to do more than issue a terse editor’s note. She wants the network to tell its audience the truth, to specify exactly what was false, and to acknowledge the harm caused by its reckless reporting. “We’re going to keep calling them out and make sure that people know the truth,” she promised. Whether the dispute ends in a lawsuit, a settlement or an official apology, the episode has already become a case study in how media errors are handled, and mishandled, in the digital age. It shows how quickly a story can become a political weapon before the facts are sorted out, and how difficult it is to restore a reputation once a false accusation has taken root. Henning’s message is simple: powerful institutions should not be allowed to publish false “hit jobs” and then walk away. Those who are harmed have every right to fight back, and the truth, no matter how long it takes, deserves the final word.