FBI file reveals story that won’t fit Trump’s narrative
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump set off a firestorm when he claimed that “thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.” Trump was referring to the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001. Debunkers subsequently swept in, such as Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, quoting Trump “doubling down” and insisting that “There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population, that were cheering as the buildings came down. Not good.”
No, not good, if it were the product of a real memory. But Trump’s recollection does not appear to be a real memory, though it contained a germ of truth.
In a series of updates to his “debunking” story Kessler then referred to reporting of “FBI probes in northern New Jersey after the attacks, saying in the 15th paragraph that ‘law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.’”
Kessler avers that “The reporters who wrote the story do not recall whether the allegations were ever confirmed.”