David Fahrenthold

“In theory, it is illegal to make the basement into a bureaucratic purgatory. In 1994, for instance, Congress prohibited agencies from making significant changes in a whistleblower's 'working conditions' as punishment for speaking out.”

“Millions of people would give literally anything to get their kids into a school like Harvard, and millions more simple admire it as another, brighter world.”

“Many graduates, moving often in the first years of their post-college life, simply forget to update their addresses with Harvard, and so bills go unanswered and uncollected. This is called a 'technical default.'”

“Trump is a really complicated story and a difficult candidate to write about.”

“Trump is somebody who sees the media as basically his main constituency. So much of his self-worth and his image and his view of what the presidency should be about is the media and how he is reflected in the media.”

“I started covering Trump's charitable giving sort of by accident.”

“So much about Trump is... mysterious and slippery. Everything in his business record, you had to ask him for the details. He made himself the only source. He would either not tell you, or he was often an unreliable narrator about his own life.”

“In a given year, the government may decide that farmers are growing more raisins than Americans will want to eat. That would cause supply to outstrip demand. Raisin prices would drop. And raisin farmers might go out of business.”

“Don't focus on what Trump says. Focus on the results of his actions. Stay in your lane and focus on one particular area.”

“'The Post' is a fairly fusty place when it comes to profanity. If a reporter tries to get a bad word into a story, the word is usually forwarded to top editors, who consider it with the gravity and speed that the Vatican applies to candidates for sainthood.”

“During the 2016 election cycle, Trump's campaign spent at least $791,000 to hold events at 12 Trump-branded venues: three hotels, seven golf courses, a condo building and Mar-a-Lago, federal campaign filings show.”

“Trump called me a 'nasty guy' on the phone, and some of his surrogates called me 'obsessed' and biased on TV.”

“We are in the era when I go home and have dinner with my kids and put them to bed, and hours later I go to Twitter, and the world has changed.”

“The task of tracking deaths for the federal bureaucracy is an enormous one; about 2.5 million Americans die each year. Federal officials say the vast majority of these cases are handled correctly: The death is recorded. Government money is no longer sent to that person. But not always.”

“Since Trump began running for president in summer 2015, he has repeatedly used his hotels and golf courses as venues for his campaign events - and paid himself for the privilege.”

“Trump has a lot of contacts in the world of charity because he rents out ballrooms, hotel ballrooms, the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago to charities. Charities are often the ones that rent out these ballrooms for big events.”

“In 2007, Donald Trump spent $20,000 that belonged to his charity - the Donald J. Trump Foundation - to buy a six-foot-tall portrait of himself during a fundraiser auction at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.”

“There is a way to tell the truth about you without you; it's just a lot more work.”

“There are two main organizations that rate charities. They look at their finances and decide whether they are giving enough to the causes they claim to focus on. Something like 80 or 90% of their money actually goes to a charitable purpose.”

“Trump was on WrestleMania in 2007. And in that year and 2009, the McMahons gave a total of $5 million. Now, we know that wasn't Trump's payment for WrestleMania. He got paid separately, but about the same time, they made this $5 million donation.”