Quotes from David Fahrenthold

The national raisin reserve is real.

If someone shut down Twitter tomorrow, and Trump had to get started on some other platform, he'd never do it. And I think the whole country would be different.

There's two sides to Trump's character, at least his pre-presidential character. One was, 'I'm the richest man you could possibly imagine, I live the life of Scrooge McDuck.' The other side was, 'I need your money. Give me money.'

I used to cover the environment, and it does have the advantage of the fact that when you call people up and ask them questions, their first instinct is not to lie to you.

The trouble with dead people often begins with something called the Death Master File, which is kept by the Social Security Administration. Every day, new reports are added, provided by relatives, funeral homes, and the state agencies that issue official death certificates. The list contains 90 million reports.

There are some things about Trump's foundation and charity that I really want to know. I worry there may not be enough time to figure it all 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.

Donald Trump was in a tuxedo, standing next to his award: a statue of a palm tree, as tall as a toddler. It was 2010, and Trump was being honored by a charity - the Palm Beach Police Foundation - for his 'selfless support' of its cause. His support did not include any of his own money.

For years, Trump himself was the Trump Foundation's only source of money: Between 1987 and 2006, he donated $5.4 million.

I am not going to argue about whether I am a nasty guy.

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

For me, the thing that is different about Trump is that you don't realize it, and I didn't realize it, but there is a rhythm that the political press - including myself - expects people to show in terms of embarrassing statements or shameful acts. And that is spinning it away and finally being forced to apologize, and then apologize again.

IRS rules generally prohibit acts of 'self-dealing,' in which a charity's leaders use the nonprofit group's money to buy things for themselves.

Federal election laws bar candidates from the 'personal use' of campaign donations - a ban meant to stop candidates from buying things unrelated to their runs for office. If a purchase is a result of campaign activity, the government allows it.

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.

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.'

In 1996, Trump had crashed a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a charity opening a nursery school for children with AIDS. Trump, who had never donated to the charity, stole a seat onstage that had been saved for a big contributor.

Miami is the place where all great Medicare fraud schemes come from. It has a great concentration of professional criminals and old people.

All of philanthropy is harnessing that urge to have your name on something, and using it for good.

Because of a jury-rigged and outdated system meant to track deaths, the government has trouble determining exactly which Americans are deceased.

The federal helium program sells vast amounts of the gas to U.S. companies that use it in everything from party balloons to MRI machines. If the government stops, no one else is ready.

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.

'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.

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.