BUSTED! Far-Left ABC News Caught Spreading Defamatory Lies About Trump’s Sons — Then Quietly Deletes Fake News Hit Piece Without Issuing a Retraction or Apology

The Corporate Fake News Media has reached a brand-new, shameful low, and this time, Disney-owned ABC News needs to be sued straight into bankruptcy.

On Wednesday, the radical hacks at ABC News published a completely fabricated, malicious hit piece targeting Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.

The mainstream media propaganda outlet falsely claimed that the Trump brothers’ conservative venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, had taken a massive, multi-billion dollar stake in the defense technology company Anduril.

On Wednesday, October 7, ABC published a story under the headline “Trump sons’ investments have won billions in Pentagon contracts since his election.”

The hit piece claimed that 1789 Capital, the venture firm where Donald Trump Jr. is one of six partners, had taken a “major stake” in defense tech company Anduril out of a $2.5 billion funding round.

It further asserted that Anduril went on to score more than $6 billion in lucrative Pentagon contracts directly tied to this investment, including a massive new shipyard deal, implying pay-to-play favoritism under the Trump administration.

“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,” according to the now-deleted article.

“An ABC News analysis found defense companies backed by the president’s sons, including Anduril, have now raked in more than $6 billion dollars in active or promised government contracts since those investments were made, according to the government’s official contract reporting,” the outlet said.

Naturally, the Far-Left smear machine immediately went into overdrive. Radical California Governor Gavin Newsom and a army of unhinged Democrats quickly weaponized ABC’s outright lies, pushing the viral hit piece across social media to frame the First Family.

There was just one giant problem for ABC News: The numbers were wrong.

Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, the entrepreneur who created Oculus and later built one of America’s fastest-growing defense companies specializing in autonomous drones and AI military systems, said Anduril gave the ABC reporter the correct figures before publication.

Luckey stated that 1789 Capital invested $50 million, not a controlling or “major” stake, in a company now valued at more than $60 billion. That is roughly one one-thousandth of Anduril. He also explained that most of the $6 billion figure consisted of contract ceilings (the maximum the government is authorized to spend), not money actually committed or paid out. These facts would have gutted the story’s premise.

ABC’s editors reviewed the piece, made only a minor edit, and stood by the reporting. Then the page disappeared. No correction note. No explanation. The link went dead.

Brian Stelter and other media figures later cited a source claiming the story was “published prematurely.” Luckey rejected that as a cover story. He described a timeline in which Anduril immediately contacted ABC, the network refused meaningful corrections, editors insisted the claims were accurate, the author went quiet (and reportedly deleted his X account), and the story was wiped without explanation. Luckey called it a coordinated influence operation rather than an innocent CMS error.

Luckey wrote on X:

ABC News continues to lie, this time privately to their friends in the press. This was a coordinated influence operation planted by our competition, not “premature publication”.

7:01 AM October 7th, story goes live. Within minutes, dozens of high-profile commentators, politicians, and news outlets are sharing it with tens of millions of followers. We immediately contact ABC and demand they correct their false claims – after multiple rounds of refusal, they finally make a single one-word grammar edit. The editors stand by the reporting and insist the false claims are true.

Finally, eight hours after I was forced to call them out publicly, they delete everything. The editors hide all the comments, the author deletes his X account, and the story is completely wiped from their website without any explanation, directly violating SPJ ethics standards and ABC’s own internal rules.

ABC is currently running a coverup operation, ignoring all of our requests for correction/retraction while telling their buddies to spread the word that this was nothing more than a CMS publication timeline error.

@ABC https://t.co/SKWyoxVcDn

— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) October 9, 2026

More from FOX 25:

Late Wednesday, 1789 Capital spokeswoman Alexa Henning replied to former Wall Street executive Amy Siskind’s X post sharing the report, saying, “This post shows you have literally zero financial literacy. 1789 Capital does not have a ‘major stake’ in Anduril. It’s false to say Vulcan, Firehawk, and PsiQuantum are ‘backed by Don Jr and Eric Trump.’”

Vulcan Elements, Firehawk Aerospace, and PsiQuantum that Henning referred to were other companies mentioned in the ABC News report.

“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. Those are two separate actions. Meaning the ‘investments’ mentioned were actually the total number raised for a funding round, that MANY companies contribute to,” Henning continued.

“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. Total biased hit piece that is not being regurgitated by dumb trolls on the internet.”

Donald Trump Jr. publicly noted the deletion, telling Newsom the article lasted “about as long as your presidential campaign would last.”

ABC deleted this article in less than 24 hours because it’s false. Sounds about as long as your presidential campaign would last.

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 8, 2026

On Friday, ABC posted a revised version under a softer headline about the new Maryland shipyard project and “earlier Democratic concerns about potential conflicts of interest.”

An editor’s note admits the original “contained errors in the description of certain company investments, government contracts and event chronologies.”

The corrected article now states that 1789 invested $50 million as part of the larger round, that this represented a relatively small stake in the $60-billion-plus company, and that Trump Jr. is not on the three-person committee that makes investment decisions. It also notes that Anduril and other firms have won contracts across administrations.

The story, which was originally bylined by Nathan Lee, now has a “By ABC NEWS” byline https://t.co/J0TbinMUNi

— Jeremy Barr (@jeremymbarr) October 9, 2026

People are now openly calling for ABC to be sued. On X and elsewhere, users are urging Palmer Luckey, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and 1789 Capital to take legal action and hold the network accountable for the false claims that were amplified before the quiet deletion.

The post BUSTED! Far-Left ABC News Caught Spreading Defamatory Lies About Trump’s Sons — Then Quietly Deletes Fake News Hit Piece Without Issuing a Retraction or Apology appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.