Bizzaro Trump Allegation: He Posed as Own PR Guy

In what may be the weirdest story yet in the weirdest election season yet, the Washington Post is out with a piece accusing Donald Trump of posing as his own boastful PR person in phone calls to reporters years ago. As Exhibit A, it shares a 14-minute recording from 1991 of a Trump spokesman who identifies himself as John Miller talking with People reporter Sue Carswell. Miller sounds like Trump as he says things like, "He’s a good guy, and he's not going to hurt anybody. ... He treated his wife well." In fact, it is Trump, declares the Post, who was given the recording by an unnamed source who knew Carswell. Speaking to NBC's Today show Friday morning, Trump denied it. "No, I don’t know anything about it," he said, per the LA Times. "It doesn't sound like my voice at all."

Carswell played the recording for several people at the time, including Trump's girlfriend Marla Maples, all of whom identified Miller as Trump. The sub-headline on the resulting interview reads, "And a Mysterious PR Man Who Sounds Just Like Donald Calls to Spread the Story." The Post piece says Trump did this regularly back in the day, using the name of John Miller or John Barron or Baron. In fact, it became a running joke in the New York tabloids, with the latter turning up in Trump-related stories as early as 1980, says the Post. Trump was quoted in a subsequent People story describing the Miller call as a "joke gone awry." And the Post notes that in a 1990 court case he testified, "I believe on occasion I used that name," in reference to John Miller. (Expect more friction between Trump and the Post.)