In 2017, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his coverage of Donald Trump and his alleged charitable givings, including the 2016 United States presidential election.

[3] He attended Memorial High School, where he wrote for the student newspaper, Anvil,[4] and was the captain of the 1996 academic challenge national championship team.

[1][7][8] Fahrenthold joined the staff of The Washington Post in 2000, where he has covered the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, the U.S. Congress, and the federal government.

[12] In January 2022, Fahrenthold tweeted that he had started working at The New York Times "as an investigative reporter focused on the world of nonprofits.

[17] The Poynter Institute described Fahrenthold as "one of the journalism stars of the 2016 campaign due to a string of revelations about Donald Trump's charitable giving (or lack of same)".

Staff at Access Hollywood, owned by NBC, had found the tape earlier in the week, and the show was working on a story but did not plan to run it until the following Monday, the day after the debate.

[9] In August 2020, Fahrenthold and other Washington Post reporters published an investigative journalism piece showing that the Secret Service spent more than $900,000 at properties owned by Trump during his presidency.