Washington Post reporter under fire from Trump for 'fake news' tweet resigned from the paper under a similar cloud seven years ago - as he jokes that worst part of his weekend has been losing his luggage

Under-fire reporter Dave Weigel joked that lost luggage was his biggest concern
The WaPo politics reporter posted a photo of a near-empty arena Saturday
Trump has called for his firing as photos show he did have a massive audience
Weigel apologized, said the comment was 'fair' and deleted the offending tweet
Now it emerges that Weigel once resigned over caustic remarks about Ron Paul
The Washington Post re-hired him five years after the 2010 imbroglio

By Keith Griffith and James Wilkinson For Dailymail.com

Published: 18:20 GMT, 10 December 2017 | Updated: 21:38 GMT, 10 December 2017

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Weigel resigned from The Washington Post in 2010 after private partisan messages were leaked. He rejoined the paper in 2015

The Washington Post reporter whom President Trump has publicly taken to task for posting a misleading photo of his Florida rally resigned under a similar cloud seven years ago.

Dave Weigel resigned from the Washington Post in 2010 after being caught posting caustic remarks about Republican Congressman Ron Paul and conservative media personalities on a private email list.

The emails to the 'Journolist' listserv, reported by The Daily Caller and Fishbowl DC, included remarks by Weigel that Matt Drudge, creator of the Drudge Report, should 'handle his emotional problems more responsibly and set himself on fire.'

He also mocked Ron Paul, leader of the then-popular Tea Party, calling it the 'Paultard Tea Party'.

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-radio titan, also came into Weigel's sights.

Limbaugh had called for then-President Barack Obama to fail, and when the radio host was hospitalized with chest pains, Weigel reportedly wrote, 'I hope he fails'.

Weigel also lamented that news organizations 'need to give equal/extra time to "real American" views, no matter how [expletive] moronic.'

At the time, Weigel's role at the Post was covering conservative political movements.

Weigel resigned over the imbroglio in June 2010, after just three months working with the Post. He was re-hired five years later, in 2015.

Weigel joked Sunday morning that lost luggage was the 'worst thing' about his weekend, a day after the president publicly excoriated him and called for his firing

Donald Trump demanded the Washington Post fire a reporter after he posted photos that wrongly gave the impression of a poor turnout for the president's Friday Florida rally (pictured)

Dave Weigel, who writes about politics for the Washington Post, put up this picture on Saturday. The photo was taken long before the rally started, Trump said

Despite drawing the ire of the President over this weekend, Weigel nonetheless joked on Twitter that the worst thing that happened was losing his luggage.

'An update on the worst thing that happened to me this weekend: 48 hours after I checked my luggage with @delta, it has still not arrived,' writer Dave Weigel tweeted Sunday morning.

Delta's official account promptly responded with a 'huge apology' and offered to assist.

Weigel's breezy assessment followed a firestorm of criticism, after he posted a misleading photo of a mostly empty arena, shot prior to Trump's Friday rally in Pensacola, Florida. The arena later filled up when Trump arrived.

'Packed to the rafters,' Weigel quipped of his phony photo. Trump immediately hit back, quickly getting an apology out of Weigel - and demanded that the Washington Post fire him to boot.

Trump's Florida rally (pictured; Trump center, in front of red tarp) was indeed packed out, with thousands in the stands and on the floor

The reporter's latest misadventure drew the full wrath of the president, who has been notably touchy about crowd sizes at his events ever since the inauguration.

Trump posted a screengrab of Weigel's Tweet on Saturday, along with photos of him standing in front of a packed arena.

'@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in,' he wrote.

'Real photos now shown as I spoke. Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo!'

Trump derided the post as 'fake news' and said that thousands of people were 'outside, on their way in,' when it was taken

Weigel apologized minutes later, and said he deleted the post after DailyMail.com's US political editor, David Martosko, told him he'd 'gotten it wrong'

An hour after his initial post Trump tweeted again, this time demanding that Weigel be fired for his 'fake news'

Weigel responded minutes later, saying he'd been notified of the error by DailyMail.com's US political editor, David Martosko, who attended the event.

'Sure thing: I apologize,' he wrote. 'I deleted the photo after @dmartosko told me I'd gotten it wrong. Was confused by the image of you walking in the bottom right corner.'

'An hour later he tweeted: 'It was a bad tweet on my personal account, not a story for Washington Post. I deleted it after like 20 minutes. Very fair to call me out.'

But apparently the mistake stuck in Trump's craw, and an hour after spotting the error he tweeted again

'.@daveweigel of the Washington Post just admitted that his picture was a FAKE (fraud?) showing an almost empty arena last night for my speech in Pensacola when, in fact, he knew the arena was packed (as shown also on T.V.),' he wrote.

'FAKE NEWS, he should be fired.'

At Friday's rally, Trump pointed to a CNN correction and other corrections and clarifications by news organizations in the past week.

The corrections came from stories that initially had been damaging to the president but didn't live up to the scrutiny.