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ABC News deletes ‘hit piece’ on Trump sons' Pentagon-linked investments without explanation

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Cite

Flood, B. (2026, October 8). ABC News deletes ‘hit piece’ on Trump sons' Pentagon-linked investments without explanation. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/media/abc-news-deletes-hit-piece-trump-sons-pentagon-linked-investments-without-explanation

Dated when The Aporia collected the article, usually within hours of publication. Check the original for its exact date and byline.

Fox News · collected 2026-10-08 · by Brian Flood

Quick Summary

ABC News removed a report on Thursday criticizing business dealings between President Trump’s sons and Pentagon-linked investments after facing legal threats. The deleted article, which is still accessible via Internet Archive, alleged that Donald Jr. and Eric Trump had significant stakes in Anduril through their venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, which invested $2.5 billion into the company in June 2025. This investment reportedly led to Anduril securing over $1.8 billion from U.S. government contracts since then. ABC News has not provided any explanation or editor’s note for removing the story despite criticism and a demand for retraction by the company's spokesperson, Alexa Henning.
Written by AI on 2026-10-08, from this article's own text only (the story summary below draws on all the coverage).

AI analysis

Story summary

ABC News deleted a report on October 7 that criticized investments made by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the sons of former President Donald Trump, in defense contractor Anduril. The article claimed that their investment firm, 1789 Capital, had a major stake in Anduril after a $2.5 billion investment but faced backlash from Anduril’s spokesperson who insisted the company does not have significant ties to 1789 Capital and accused ABC of biased reporting. Despite deleting the story without explanation, ABC News later offered contradictory reasons for its removal, suggesting it was published prematurely while downplaying their own errors in reporting.

Written for “ABC News Story Removals” on 2026-11-04, grounded in this article and the 1 other(s) covering the same event.

Story

📰 ABC News Story Removals
Politics · 2 article(s) covering the same event. See how they differ ↓

Compared with similar articles

This article reads leans strongly right and hedges 5% of its claims. Each row says how that neighbour differs.
Semafor
⚖️ Leans left further left than this Hedges 3 of 41 claims Outlet record 59/100
New York Post
⚖️ Leans strongly right Hedges 3 of 22 claims Outlet record 66/100
“Article A describes ABC News deleting a critical report about Trump sons' investments, while Article B discusses Eric Trump's reaction and support for an FCC probe into the revised story, referring to it as 'botched.' The events are related but distinct.”
ABC News (US)
Hedges 11 of 46 claims Outlet record 67/100
“While both articles discuss Pentagon contracts involving Trump's sons' investments, they describe different aspects of the situation—one detailing the contract announcement itself and the other focusing on a news report about those investments being deleted.”
Fox News
Hedges 3 of 23 claims Outlet record 68/100
“While both articles discuss the deletion of an ABC News report about Trump sons' investments, Article B reports on a subsequent call for FCC investigation, which is a related but separate event.”
Fox News
⚖️ Leans left further left than this Hedges 1 of 27 claims Outlet record 68/100
“While both articles discuss the deletion and republishing of a controversial piece about President Trump's sons, they describe different stages of this process (deletion in Article A and subsequent republication with changes in Article B).”
How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
22
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
5%
1 of 22 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
Leans strongly right
of the writing, not the subject · beta estimate
Publisher signals
68/100
Fox News's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
2
Politics
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Analyzed 2026-10-08 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

Fox News · 6569 article(s) · 13 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 13 correction(s)

Who wrote this

Brian Flood
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Also by Brian Flood
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.
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Topics

1789 Capital ABC ABC News Anduril the Internet Archive’s

Subjects

ABC News ORG · 10× Anduril ORG · 4× Donald Trump Jr. PERSON · 4× Eric Trump PERSON · 4× Henning PERSON · 4× 1789 Capital ORG · 3× ABC ORG · 3× Fox News Digital ORG · 2× Trump PERSON · 2× Trump Jr. PERSON · 2×

Narrative

1789 Capital spokesperson Alexa Henning, a former chief of staff to the Director of National Intelligence, took to social media, insisting the company does not have a "major stake" in Anduril and blasting the "biased hit piece." "Here's a small lesson, that I also explained to ABC, the ‘reporter’ who is a complete idiot conflated raising funds with investment by 1789.
framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-10-08
🔮 She said that in addition to calling out the story publicly on X, she sent a detailed email to ABC News pointing out mistakes in the reporting and informing the Disney-owned network that lawyers would be in touch if action was not taken.

Claims (22 extracted, 1 hedged)

ABC News deleted a report criticizing the business dealings of President Donald Trump’s oldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, on Thursday after facing legal threats but has failed to provide any explanation or editor’s note for the vanished "hit piece." asserted
News → delete → piece
The now-deleted report, which can still be viewed via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, was published Wednesday with the headline, "Trump sons' investments have won billions in Pentagon contracts since his election," and said Anduril, the company investing in a new Baltimore shipyard, had ties to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. " asserted
Anduril → delete → Jr.
1789 Capital — a venture capital firm that lists Donald Trump Jr. as one of six partners along with three founders — claimed a major stake in Anduril in June 2025 from a $2.5 billion investment into the company," ABC News reported in the deleted story. asserted
News → list → story
"Since that investment, Anduril has been awarded 135 other contracts with the U.S. government and to date has received around $1.8 billion from those agreements, according to active defense contracts posted to SAM.gov, the official system for government contracting. uncertain
Anduril → award → contracting
"The company is one of the largest manufacturers to receive an investment from Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric Trump, but they are not the only one." asserted
they → receive → Jr.
1789 Capital spokesperson Alexa Henning, a former chief of staff to the Director of National Intelligence, took to social media, insisting the company does not have a "major stake" in Anduril and blasting the "biased hit piece." "Here's a small lesson, that I also explained to ABC, the ‘reporter’ who is a complete idiot conflated raising funds with investment by 1789. asserted
who → take → 1789
Those are two separate actions," Henning wrote. asserted
Henning → write → ?
"Meaning the ‘investments’ mentioned were actually the total number raised for a funding round, that MANY companies contribute to," Henning continued. asserted
Henning → mean → that
"Another thing that the reporter buried the lead on was that many of these companies have gotten government contracts during Biden AND Trump, which completely negates the assertion by ABC that Don Jr and Eric Trump are doing anything wrong." asserted
Jr → bury → anything
Shortly after, ABC News deleted the story from its website. asserted
News → delete → website
The link to the original report now states, "This page either does not exist or is currently unavailable." asserted
page → state → report
ABC News did not immediately respond to a request for comment. asserted
News → respond → comment
The network has not issued a correction or provided a public explanation for why the report was removed from its website. asserted
report → issue → website
ABC News also deleted a viral X post intended to promote the story that was shared by several prominent Democrats. asserted
that → delete → Democrats
Henning spoke to Fox News Digital after ABC News deleted the story. asserted
News → speak → story
She said that in addition to calling out the story publicly on X, she sent a detailed email to ABC News pointing out mistakes in the reporting and informing the Disney-owned network that lawyers would be in touch if action was not taken. asserted
action → say → touch
She "really appreciates that they took it down," but wants a clear explanation of why it was published in the first place and believes ABC News should inform readers of its errors. asserted
News → appreciate → errors
Henning also told Fox News Digital that ABC News never asked 1789 Capital for comment prior to the story’s initial publication, despite being mentioned several times in the initial report. asserted
News → tell → report
"The majority of people reporting on 1789 do not fundamentally understand how it works," she said. asserted
she → report → 1789
Once the story had vanished, Trump Jr. responded to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had shared the initial ABC News report on X. "ABC deleted this article in less than 24 hours because it’s false. asserted
it → vanish → hours
Sounds about as long as your presidential campaign would last," Trump Jr. wrote. asserted
Jr. → sound → ?
Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report. asserted
Phillips → contribute → report
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