By The FirstThe Washington Post has silently issued a correction about a story it ran after the election alleging that Trump told Georgia election officials to “find the fraud” and that the official would be a “national hero” if she did. Now the Post is admitting those quotes were made up.
Initially, the Post said in January that in a post-election call with a Georgia election official, Frances Watson, that Trump commander her to “find the fraud” and said she would be a “national hero” if and when that happened. But newly-released audio of the entire call shows that those things were never said.
Here’s the correction:
Correction: Two months after publication of this story, the Georgia secretary of state released an audio recording of President Donald Trump’s December phone call with the state’s top elections investigator. The recording revealed that The Post misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. Trump did not tell the investigator to “find the fraud” or say she would be “a national hero” if she did so. Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find “dishonesty” there. He also told her that she had “the most important job in the country right now.” A story about the recording can be found here. The headline and text of this story have been corrected to remove quotes misattributed to Trump.
Many people are now wondering if the Post will be held accountable, with some going as far as to suggest the Post completely fabricated the quotes to make Trump look bad.
You can listen to the call yourself below: