The Washington Post issued a retraction on Thursday regarding its December article on former President Donald Trump allegedly pressuring Georgia Elections Investigator Frances Watson to "find the fraud" prompting the former to respond on the issue.
Breitbart reported that the Washington Post changed its original article headline from "'Find the fraud': Trump pressured a Georgia elections investigator in a separate call legal experts say could amount to obstruction" to a new one on March 11, "Trump pressured a Georgia elections investigator in a separate call legal experts say could amount to obstruction".
In addition to the revised headline, Breitbart pointed out that the said article had a very long note that came with it that actually contained the news organization's retraction on the matter, which was recently used as evidence against Trump in his second impeachment last February.
"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," began the Washington Post's long note written under the headline and before the actual article.
"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," the Washington Post continued referring to Watson, "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."
According to the Washington Examiner, the Wall Street Journal published the controversial audio of Trump and Watson last week where the former president urged that Fulton County mail-in ballots be checked for fraud. The audio recording clearly debunked the original claim of Washington Post and CNN that Trump's telling Watson to "find the fraud" so she can be a "national hero" were mere fake news.
The Washington Examiner pointed out that despite the existence of the audio and its content clearly showing that Trump was badly misquoted, CNN refused to retract on its report on the matter unlike the Washington Post.
In addition, the Washington Examiner highlighted that both outlets originally held the disbelief that such an audio record on the controversial phone call actually existed until Georgia's secretary of state came out with it. The recording was actually found after Watson responded to a public information request on it and it was discovered in her device's trash folder.
Trump, following Washington Post's retraction, issued a statement thanking the outlet for admitting its mistake and calling for an investigation on the widespread fraud that took place Georgia's November elections.
"While I appreciate Washington Post's correction, which makes the Georgia Witch-Hunt a non-story, the original story was a Hoax right from the very beginning. 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 elections in Georgia," Trump said.
In the statement, Trump elaborated that Fulton County "had not been properly audited for vote and signature verification" and said that investigators only looked in areas where there would be small problems yet actually "found large numbers of mistakes." He stressed that many Georgians agree that there was a "large scale election fraud" that took place such that they did not fully participate in the January senatorial elections.
Trump also cited the Consent Decree signed by Georgia Governor Brad Raffensperger and Stacey Abrams that the state legislature did not approve and questioned why the former even approved it in the first place. Since it was not approved by state legislature, he said it was invalid and makes the election results invalid as well. The former president then highlighted the media's effect in politics especially during the last election.
"You will notice that establishment media errors, omissions, mistakes, and outright lies always slant one way--against me and against Republicans," he highlighted, "Meanwhile, stories that hurt Democrats or undermine their narratives are buried, ignored, delayed until they could do the least harm--for example, after the election is over."
Trump cited the negative coverage on the vaccines before the election--being his term--and the "over celebration" on the vaccine after the elections were finished--after his term. He reminded that an "honest press" is necessary for a "strong democracy," which the recent circumstances that media outlets exhibited show otherwise. He said the media outlets have become "political entities" instead of "journalistic enterprises."
