David Farenthold

David A. Fahrenthold is a reporter at The Washington Post who covers politics, including the 2016 United States presidential election.

Fahrenthold covered the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, particularly reporting on the Donald J. Trump Foundation as well as claims Trump made as the 2016 Republican nominee for president that he had given away millions out of his own pocket. In May 2016, Fahrenthold began an effort to verify these personal donations; to solicit leads and for transparency, he periodically posted updates to Twitter via a hand-written list of charities he had contacted to ask whether they had received contributions from Trump, as well as the charities' responses. After four months, Fahrenthold and colleagues at the Post had contacted more than 400 major charities, with only one charity confirming they had received a personal donation from Trump between 2008 and May 2016 when Fahrenthold began publicly reporting on the question.

Following Fahrenthold's reporting, the New York attorney general opened an inquiry into Trump Foundation fundraising practices, and ultimately issued a "notice of violation" ordering the Foundation to stop raising money in New York. The Poynter Institute described Fahrenthold as "one of the journalism stars of the 2016 campaign due to a string of revelations about Donald Trump's charitable giving (or lack of same)." CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter said: "Some have dubbed [Fahrenthold's work] Pulitzer worthy. Its impact was reinforced on Tuesday [September 13, 2016] when President Obama cited the reporting while stumping for Hillary Clinton."

On October 7, 2016, Fahrenthold broke news of a 2005 Access Hollywood video recording Donald Trump making what Politico characterized as "lewd comments about groping women"; among other remarks, Trump said that his celebrity allowed him to "grab them by the pussy" without consequence. An unnamed source called Fahrenthold at 11AM that day and informed him of the tape's existence; at 4PM Fahrenthold published the tape and a reported story on it. The newspaper said it became "the most concurrently viewed article in the history of The Post’s website." The story broke two days before the second of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign debates between Trump and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Staff at Access Hollywood, which airs on NBC, had found the tape earlier in the week and the show was working on a story, but did not plan to run it until the following Monday, the day after the debate. Once Fahrenthold broke the story at the Post, both Access Hollywood and NBC News ran stories the same night.