It seems not everyone at The Washington Post was happy about the newspaper inviting Donald Trump to Saturday's White House Correspondents Dinner.

Several staffers, including two who spoke with Media Matters, criticized the paper for inviting Trump to the dinner given his recent controversial views and his potential presidential candidacy.

“People were definitely uneasy and anxious about the appearance,” said one Post writer who requested anonymity. “Some people are uncomfortable about the whole dinner and participation in it. Others may be uncomfortable about Trump.”

Columnist Dana Milbank took the paper to task in a column that criticized the Post for hosting Trump just days after running a stinging editorial about his now-debunked birther claims.

Wrote Milbank:

On Thursday, The Washington Post editorializes that Donald Trump has been campaigning on “bogus” issues and that he should “cease and desist.” An article in the news pages the same day reports that the great orange charlatan's “simply wild speculation” has "almost no basis in fact."

Then, on Saturday night, Post reporters and editors, in black-tie finest, go to the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner to host their invited guests, including . . . Donald Trump.

Awkward though the Trump invitation is, it is just one of the many problems with the annual dinner and its satellite events.

He later added:

I don't fault any one host for throwing a party or any journalist for attending. Many of them are friends. There's nothing inherently wrong with savoring Johnnie Walker Blue with the politicians we cover.

But the cumulative effect is icky. With the proliferation of A-list parties and the infusion of corporate and lobbyist cash, Washington journalists give Americans the impression we have shed our professional detachment and are aspiring to be like the celebrities and power players we cover.

Contacted by Media Matters on Monday, Milbank expanded on his views, adding that several other Post staffers had agreed with him:

“Based on what people said to me after [the column] ran, several people had similar concerns. As it happened in the end, it sounds like Obama and Seth Meyers made him miserable enough that it was worthwhile. It sounds like some rough justice was had.”

He also added, “To me, the whole weekend is a colossal embarrassment and that was one minor embarrassment that, with all of the others, added to a colossal embarrassment.”

Another top Post staffer who criticized the invitation was Ezra Klein, who wrote on Twitter on April 24:

The Washington Post invited Donald Trump as our guest to the correspondent's dinner?http://bit.ly/fsTH2t That's embarrassing.

He later noted:

Apparently, the New York Times began sitting out the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2007. Smart.http://n.pr/fOPAAU

Klein did not respond to a request for comment.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Lally Weymouth -- Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth's mother and the sister of former publisher and current chairman Donald Graham -- was responsible for the Trump invitation.

One Post source told Media Matters that Weymouth, a former Newsweek senior editor, had usually made her requests for dinner guests through Newsweek, which was sold by The Washington Post Company last year.

The source said this may become a trend, advising Post staffers to “brace for” similar moves in the future.

A Post spokesperson declined to comment on the Trump invitation.