Former President Donald Trump issued a statement gloating over the Washington Post’s decision to run a correction on a months-old story accusing Trump of trying to manufacture election fraud evidence in Georgia.
WaPo and many other news outlets ran articles containing a fabricated Trump quote that was sourced anonymously, saying Trump had asked Frances Watson, the chief investigator of the Georgia secretary of state, to “find the fraud,” during a phone call. A recording of the call now shows Trump said nothing of the sort, leading to the WaPo correction.
“You will notice that establishment media errors, omissions, mistakes, and outright lies always slant one way–against me and against Republicans,” Trump wrote. “This latest media travesty underscores that legacy media outlets should be regarded as political entities–not journalistic enterprises.” (RELATED: Trump Waged All-Out War Against Georgia Republicans On Twitter While Ignoring Warnock And Ossoff In Leadup To Runoffs)
????
“Trump did not tell the investigator to “find the fraud” or say she would be “a national hero” if she did so.”https://t.co/PnQm0aJyOu pic.twitter.com/GEzAJmhWDY— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) March 15, 2021
real bad. this quote was and still is everywhere. pic.twitter.com/jZwQ9rPwRp
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) March 15, 2021
The quote spread widely in the media and gave rise to calls for an investigation into whether Trump had committed a crime during the phone call, an allegation he called a “witch hunt” at the time.
Trump also took the opportunity to double down on his claims of election fraud, calling for an investigation into the voting in Fulton County, Georgia. Trump and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits in the weeks and months after Election Day making various claims of fraud. All except one failed quickly in court.
“I would further appreciate a strong investigation into Fulton County, Georgia, and the Stacey Abrams political machine which, I believe, would totally change the course of the presidential election in Georgia,” he wrote.
Trump has failed to produce evidence of election fraud in Georgia or elsewhere.
The Wall Street Journal was the first outlet to publish the recorded call, going public in a March 11 article. The WaPo correction came four days later on Monday morning.