The New York Times knew.
Before they published a single word, their own reporters told the Trump Organization the brothers were not "actively a part of this deal."
They ran the story anyway, but now there's a legal retraction demand sitting on editor Joseph Kahn's desk – and what it proves about how the Times operates is right there in their own pre-publication emails.
What the Times Knew Before They Hit Publish
The story in question ran June 28 under the headline "Trump Cut a Billion-Dollar Mining Deal.
His Sons Stand to Profit." The implication was clear: President Trump negotiated a billion-dollar tungsten deal with Kazakhstan, and Don Jr. and Eric personally cashed in.
Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten didn't just call it misleading.
He called it "deliberately crafted" to create a false impression.
Here's the timeline the Times didn't want front and center.
In August 2025, an investment fund connected to Dominari Securities – a company in which the Trump brothers hold a minority stake – invested in a publicly traded construction company called Skyline Builders.
https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/2072798174448689583?s=20
The Kazakhstan verbal agreement happened in September 2025 – after that investment.
Cove Capital, the firm that actually won the tungsten mining contract, wasn't introduced to Skyline until a full month after the September agreement.
The legal letter is airtight on the facts.
The brothers never spoke to anyone at Cove Capital about the financing.
They had no control over Skyline, no role in the Kazakhstan negotiations, and no knowledge of Cove Capital's pursuit of the project.
As Garten puts it, their connection to the deal is "remote, indirect and highly attenuated."
The Times had this information.
They published anyway.
Why This Deal Matters – and Why Democrats Hate That It Happened
Before you let the Times frame this as a corruption story, understand what tungsten actually is.
China controls roughly 80% of global tungsten production.
China placed export controls on it in February 2025, which sent prices up nearly 900% over twelve months.
The U.S. military has a legal deadline – January 1, 2027 – to stop buying Chinese, Russian, Iranian and North Korean tungsten for defense applications.
Tungsten goes into armor-piercing munitions, missile components, fighter jet parts and semiconductor manufacturing.
https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/2072673302296801495?s=20
The U.S. hasn't mined it domestically since 2015.
Kazakhstan sits on one of the largest untapped tungsten reserves on the planet.
Trump's deal secured American access to it – backstopped by up to $1.6 billion in U.S. government financing letters of interest.
That's the story the Times buried under the conflict-of-interest framing: Trump pulled off a critical mineral coup that reduces American dependence on China while China was actively weaponizing its tungsten supply against us.
The Pattern the Times Is Running
This isn't the first time this month the Times has received a legal demand from the Trump team.
Trump's personal attorney recently sent a separate retraction demand to the Times over its Iran strike coverage – the paper published a leaked intelligence assessment designed to undercut the President's claim that strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities were decisive.
The Times rejected that demand cold: no retraction, no apology.
That posture has a cost.
The paper is currently facing a multi-billion dollar lawsuit from Trump over prior reporting.
Every new retraction demand adds to the pattern being built for that case.
The Trump Organization's statement to Fox News Digital didn't mince words: "All of these facts are readily ascertainable and could have easily been verified had anyone from the New York Times or any other publication performed even the slightest amount of due diligence before proceeding with such reckless and unfounded assertions."
The White House backed that framing directly.
https://twitter.com/ThePatriotOasis/status/2072814586592706755?s=20
"Securing and reshoring America's critical supply chains has been a top priority for President Trump," spokesman Kush Desai said, "and Secretary Lutnick along with the rest of the Administration continue to take historic action to safeguard America's national and economic security."
That's what the New York Times called corruption.
Securing American missile production from Chinese blackmail.
Getting in front of a mineral crisis that could leave the Pentagon without the metal it needs to build weapons.
Locking in a deal with Kazakhstan – a country actively trying to balance between Russia and China – before Beijing could.
They knew.
They published anyway.
Sources: –
- Peter D'Abrosca, "Trump Organization Demands New York Times Retract Mining Deal Story," Fox News Digital, July 2, 2026.
- "Tungsten and the New Global Supply Chain War," InvestorNews, May 7, 2026. – "China Restrictions Lead to Tungsten Supply Crunch," Industrial Info Resources, June 1, 2026.
- "China, Tungsten and a Supply Shock," CNBC, June 3, 2026.
- "Mining Companies Squaring Up to Challenge China's Dominance of Tungsten Market," National Defense Magazine, December 18, 2025.
