Donald Trump came a cropper over the last two weeks. On November 21 he said “thousands of Muslims” celebrated the fall of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. He said it to a capacity crowd in Birmingham, Ala. He even said they celebrated in front of him. Almost at once, the Mainstream Media denied anyone reliably saw Muslims celebrating 9/11. Even the site TruthOrFiction.com ruled: Donald Trump told a lie. But Donald Trump sticks to his story. (See these two reports here and here.) Chuck Todd, host of Meet the (De)Press(ed), called Donald Trump a liar. Still Trump stuck to his story. Afterward, Todd wept and gnashed his teeth. “What do you do,” he said in effect, “when someone lies to your face and can get away with it?”

But Chuck Todd and the worthies at New York and TruthOrFiction missed one vital element. Suppose Donald Trump told the truth? Suppose any Muslims celebrated 9/11, in block or rooftop or other parties of any size? Suppose the press reported those parties when they first happened? Now suppose they scrubbed all mention of those parties years later? Suppose criticizing Muslims and Islam fell out of fashion?

Dear readers, prepare yourselves for a little shock. CNAV has received evidence–from the Web Archive, alias The Wayback Machine, no less–to vindicate Donald Trump’s claims about Muslims celebrating 9/11.

The New York Post on Muslims

Collapse of 1 World Trade Center, September 11, 2001

Ladies and gentlemen, Exhibit A for the defense/cross-plaintiff. Fred Siegel, who instructed in history at Cooper Union then, wrote a piece for The New York Post. He called it “The Issue is Radical Islam.” Muslims celebrating 9/11 made only one thing to concern him. The BBC never doubted (as some do even today) that nineteen Muslims took down the Twin Towers, punched a hole in the Pentagon, and tried to take down either the White House or the Capitol. (Todd Beamer and several fellow passengers of Flight UAL 93 had other ideas about that last.) But the Beeb then blamed Israel for raising tensions in the Middle East. (The Intifada had started in Gaza earlier.) And they blamed then-President George W. Bush for failing to mediate between Israel and the districts of Judea and Samaria (“West Bank”) and ancient southern Philistia (“Gaza Strip”). Fred Siegel flatly denied this:

The issue is not Israel. Osama bin Laden blew up a U.S. embassy when the Oslo “peace process” was at the height of its “success.” The issue is the inability of Islamic regimes around the globe to come to grips with the modern world.

Siegel could as easily have said Muslims as people have trouble coming to grips with modernity. The more devout the Muslim, the worse his problem with modernity. A spate of “honor killings” in America and in other countries with Muslim enclaves should prove this to anyone.

And in a matter-of-fact way, Siegel spoke of celebrations by Muslims in Patterson, N.J. (And also in Jersey City, N.J., as The Washington Post first reported a week after the towers fell.) Siegel went on:

Here in New York, it was easy to get angry listening to Egyptians, Palestinians and the Arabs of nearby Paterson, N.J., celebrate as they received word of the murderous attacks in New York and Washington. But Mayor Giuliani (who has been tireless and magnificent in this crisis) rightly warned New Yorkers [not] to take their anger out on the city’s Arab and Muslim residents. Attacks on Arab-Americans in Paterson or elsewhere are utterly indefensible.

Omar, a Muslim New Yorker and former student of mine at Cooper Union, e-mailed me to say he was “sickened to watch Middle Easterners celebrate our sorrow.” He is an American who has imbibed our values while maintaining his Muslim faith. He wants no truck with those who kill in the name of Islam.

Siegel then asked: why do Muslims routinely persecute non-Muslims in all countries in which they, the Muslims, hold sway?

Re-read the above. Witnesses e-mailed Siegel. They saw Muslims celebrate 9/11. No one yet disputes this much: Muslims danced in the streets of Gaza. (Yasser Arafat still lived at the time. He made a show of giving blood after that. The spectacle of Muslims celebrating other people’s pain embarrassed him.) Siegel didn’t even have to emphasize Muslims celebrating 9/11. He wanted to lash out at any who blamed non-Muslims for what Muslims did.

The press scrubs its own archives

But today the Mainstream Media imitate George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth (Nineteen Eighty-four). Mike M. Garcia looked in the archives of The New York Post. First he ran a conventional engine search. (CNAV, having no product-placement agreement with Google, Inc., refuses to use the name Google as a verb.) As he expected, he found nothing.

Then he searched again, using the Wayback Machine. And found the link CNAV used above.

User “Sundance” at The Conservative Treehouse published his findings here. He observes Donald Trump did nothing more serious than to exaggerate. He also included Mike Garcia’s tweet:

READ STORY> https://t.co/GzWeNjAMbT@TheLastRefuge2 @NolteNC @seanhannity @IngrahamAngle @AnnCoulter @oreillyfactor pic.twitter.com/wnLmeR9vz4

— Mike (@MGarciaNM) December 1, 2015

What indeed should concern us more? Maybe Donald Trump exaggerated. But the Mainstream Media insisted no Muslims celebrated 9/11. Your editor remembers news stories of those parties. He shared those memories on other venues that do not bear mention here. In reply many others on those forums threw names like “slur” and “nutball.” To that, CNAV says: you can censor the news. But you cannot censor memory.

Not Donald Trump’s memory, at least. Any, repeat any, block, rooftop, or other parties over the 9/11 Incident should concern any civilized person.

The New York Times then accused Donald Trump of a slur against its reporter, Serge Kovalski. He seems to have some kind of physical disability. But his physical ailment did not concern Trump. That he would willingly censor his own earlier reporting, and scrub his own archive, did concern Trump. As it should concern us all.

Donald Trump wants The New York Times to apologize. They should. In fact, every Mainstream Media organ should apologize. For doing things a Nineteen Eighty-four-style Ministry of Truth might order. For sacrificing truth about enemies of civilization, to a false peace. For playing the part of a Ministry of Truth. No such Ministry or Department of Truth exists. Yet. So the Mainstream Media invented it and became it.

And for calling Donald Trump a liar. Because when they do that, they call many other people liars. For more people than Donald Trump alone remembered Muslims celebrating 9/11. This goes beyond libel. Public figures cannot even sue for libel in America anyway. Not unless they can prove full malice.

Or can Donald Trump prove malice? I’d say he has. Not malice against himself. Malice against the American people.