Donald Trump Accuses Jeff Bezos of Using Washington Post to Skirt Antitrust Laws
Donald Trump has accused Jeff Bezos of using the Washington Post, which he owns, to sway politicians into making corporate tax policy decisions favorable to Amazon.com, which he founded. “He’s using the Washington Post, which is peanuts, he’s using that for political purposes to save Amazon in terms of taxes and in terms of antitrust,” Trump told Fox News on Thursday.
“Every hour we’re getting calls from reporters from the Washington Post asking ridiculous questions,” Trump said. “He thinks I’ll go after him for antitrust,” he continued. “Because he’s got a huge antitrust problem because he’s controlling so much, Amazon is controlling so much of what they are doing.”
According to the Associated Press, Marty Baron, the Post’s executive editor, said in a statement that he’s “received no instructions from Jeff Bezos” directing campaign coverage.
On Wednesday, associate editor Bob Woodward told the National Association of Realtors convention in Washington that Bezos urged the paper to run as many stories as possible on both Trump and all the other candidates.
“We have 20 people working on Trump, we’re going to do a book, we’re doing articles about every phase of his life,” he said. That includes Trump’s business dealings.
“The New York real estate world is more complex than the CIA,” Woodward added.