Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty broke some news in her column that became a Twitter Moment: "Reagan Foundation asks Trump and RNC to stop using Ronald Reagan's name in campaign."
Tumulty began:
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, which runs the 40th president’s library near Los Angeles, has demanded that President Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC) quit raising campaign money by using Ronald Reagan’s name and likeness.
“It was simply handled with a phone call mid-last week to the RNC, and they agreed to stop,” Reagan Foundation chief marketing officer Melissa Giller said in an email Saturday.
Giller objected to a fundraising email that went out July 19 with “Donald J. Trump” identified as the sender and a subject line that read: “Ronald Reagan and Yours Truly.” Team Trump offered, for a donation of $45 or more, a commemorative set of two gold-colored coins, one each with an image of Reagan and Trump.
How did Tumulty get this scoop? See paragraph 9: "Frederick J. Ryan Jr., who chairs the Reagan Foundation board, is also publisher and CEO of The Washington Post. He declined to offer a comment for this column."
This raises the question: why didn't the Post insist that Ryan drop his Reagan Foundation responsibilities when he became publisher of this very anti-Trump, anti-Reagan newspaper? And why didn't the Reagan Foundation see a liberal-media conflict? On Sunday, Reagan administration alumnus and radio and TV star Mark Levin objected on his social sites:
I did not realize that Fred Ryan, who is now the publisher and CEO of the Washington Post is also the chairman of the Reagan Library & Foundation board. Now, given the Washington Post's leftist agenda, and the conservative legacy of the great Ronald Reagan, this appears to me to be a huge conflict. And it also explains why the Washington Post ran a story about the Reagan Library objecting to President Trump's use of the Reagan name for fundraising -- that means Fred Ryan objected.
Levin noted he and many others have supported the Reagan Foundation for decades, and resent this anti-Trump stunt:
I am appalled that the Fred Ryan's Washington Post and the Reagan Library under Fred Ryan's chairmanship, would pull this publicity stunt on President Trump. And I expect the thousands of Reagan alumni who worked for President Reagan share my concern. Mr. Ryan, decide who and what you want to be, but it's obvious you cannot be both the Washington Post publisher/CEO and the Reagan Library board chairman when there's a clear conflict.
This makes about as much sense as the CEO of Fox News running the Jimmy Carter Center.
