CNN host Wolf Blitzer used a White House Correspondents Association Dinner award presentation Friday night to celebrate Wall Street Journal reporting on President Donald Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein — with Trump seated only a few feet away.
Blitzer presented the Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability to eight Journal reporters for work that helped trigger the release of the so-called Epstein files and drew two $10 billion lawsuits from the president. Trump shrugged and smiled through the presentation, then greeted the reporters and shook their hands.
The Journal's courageous reporting on President Trump's past relationship with financier Jeffrey Epstein triggered the release of the so-called Epstein files, thousands of documents that might have otherwise remained hidden from the public.
Blitzer, according to HuffPost's account of the event, told the room that the reporting prompted the release of documents that "might have otherwise remained hidden from the public." He added that "despite the president's threat of a lawsuit, the Journal published a story about a provocative letter to Epstein bearing President Trump's signature."
The award recipients were Khadeeja Safdar, Joe Palazzolo, Sadie Gurman, Annie Linskey, Josh Dawsey, Alex Leary, Rebecca Ballhaus and C. Ryan Barber.
Among the Journal's most consequential stories was one about an alleged letter Trump wrote to Epstein in 2003 for his 50th birthday. "Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret," the message said in part. Trump has denied writing the letter.
Trump had reportedly called the WSJ's publisher, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, before publication in an attempt to kill the story, but Murdoch refused.
The president is now suing the paper whose reporters he shook hands with.