The New York Daily News released an archived news article on Friday that seemed to contradict a claim by Donald J. Trump that he knew nothing about a reporter whose disability Mr. Trump appeared to mock at a rally earlier this week.

The reporter, Serge Kovaleski, said Thursday that he covered Mr. Trump numerous times while he was at The Daily News, including on a daylong maiden voyage of the now-defunct “Trump Shuttle” in 1989. “Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years,” he said of the real-estate developer in the Thursday interview.

Mr. Trump drew criticism after he mocked Mr. Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that limits his ability to move his joints, during a South Carolina rally.

Mr. Kovaleski, while working as a reporter for The Washington Post, wrote an article on Sept. 18, 2001, in which he described the authorities’ detaining and questioning “a number of people” who were “alleged” to have been seen celebrating at tailgate-style parties on roofs in New Jersey, watching the devastation of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center site a week earlier.