David Fahrenthold
@Fahrenthold
Investigative reporter for the New York Times, focused on nonprofits. Tips? [email protected]
We have been mapping and studying the known flood risks at Camp Mystic. It turns out that not only was the camp in a flood zone, some cabins were located in areas that local county officials had deemed “extremely hazardous.” Here is more of what we found. 🧵 1/9
New from @wpinvestigates: We wanted to understand why youth crime shot up so stunningly in D.C. in 2023. Today, we published a multi-part investigation into the city's failure to both prevent and address the epidemic. Each part threaded here. Thank you for reading! 1/x
NEW: The V.A. was under pressure to slash spending. Then it started to feed @DOGE misleading budget cuts, inflating its progress. nytimes.com/2025/07/14/us/…
We've dropped the paywall on all of our flood coverage at @TexasMonthly. Our journalists have been in the field with first responders, former campers, and those affected since last week. There are so many stories that deserve telling. texasmonthly.com/news-politics/…
NEW: I tried to interview Joe Biden for my book on the 2024 election. I called his cell phone, and he agreed but cut it short as he boarded an Amtrak train. His aides then changed his number. NYT excerpt of 2024, w @jdawsey1 + @iarnsdorf —out today! nytimes.com/2025/07/08/us/…
NEW: IRS says that churches can now endorse candidates from the pulpit -- granting them an exemption from a 70 year-old ban on politicking by tax-exempt groups. nytimes.com/2025/07/07/us/…
Good question! The documents that the IRS filed tonight only formally apply to one case in Texas. But the IRS is using them to state a broader belief about how the law applies to everyone nationwide.
Question: Does this only apply in Texas? Does this ruling fall within the scope of the SCOTUS decision that lower court ruling only apply in the local district?
NEW TONIGHT: @IRS says that churches can now endorse candidates from the pulpit, carving out an exemption to a decades-old ban on politicking by tax-exempt nonprofits. nytimes.com/2025/07/07/us/…
This was an incredibly moving story by the Washington Post's @arelisrhdz.
Michael McCown, father of Linnie, went to Camp Mystic to walk and search. He needed to find his daughter. I respectfully share this short dispatch about a grieving father and am so grateful to him for letting me in. washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/07…
Texas officials have long worried about the dangers to children who packed into camps each summer along the flood-prone Guadalupe River. They knew that warning systems were inadequate. So why was nothing done? We have reviewed documents spanning a decade to find answers. 🧵 1/9
DOGE claims to be responsible for $175B in estimated savings but investigative reporter @Fahrenthold tells @InsidePolitics, "A lot of that claim is not substantiated at all. They haven't shown us the receipts... When you look closely, you find that there's huge errors."
“It’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency,” @PressSec said, before Trump headed to his golf club to dine with 220 people who bought his memecoin, which generates fees for a Trump business entity. nytimes.com/2025/05/22/us/…
NEW: @doge tries --- and, so far, fails -- to investigate another government budget watchdog, the Government Accountability Office. nytimes.com/2025/05/16/us/…
DOGE went looking for phone fraud at SSA — and found almost none nextgov.com/digital-govern…
Here is what we confirmed: After Musk’s rise to power in the U.S. government, the State Department has repeatedly coaxed, lobbied and browbeat this tiny West African country into giving business to Musk’s satellite company Starlink. propublica.org/article/trump-…
Update: @DOGE removes 31 more incorrect claims -- and $122M in savings -- from its "Wall of Receipts" after we identified they were wrong. The listings were wrong b/c the contracts DOGE claimed credit for killing were not dead anymore: agencies had revived them.…
Trump plans to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 plane as a donation from the Qatari royal family that will be upgraded to serve as Air Force One and then plans to continue using it as a private citizen after office, raising profound ethical issues. @maggieNYT nytimes.com/2025/05/11/us/…
NEW: Dozens of contracts killed by @doge have already been resurrected by federal agencies. DOGE still lists them as "terminated," inflating its success with $200M+ in savings that have already vanished. nytimes.com/2025/05/09/us/…
NEW: After USDA cut aid to food banks, one WV charity tries to make hot lunch out of crackers, craisins and vegetable soup. nytimes.com/2025/04/28/us/…
