Back in early January, The Washington Post reportedly that Trump pressured an election official in Georgia to “find the fraud”. A number of other media outlets reported the claim as fact.
Well, now it turns out that the reporting was completely wrong.
Trump never used the phrase "find the fraud" during the call with Frances Watson, the chief investigator in Georgia’s Secretary of State's office.
Another component of the Post’s story that Trump had told her she would be a “national hero" if she did discover evidence of fraud also turned out to be false.
Turns out the Post’s anonymous source lied after a recording of the calls recently emerged.
Trump actually said she would be "praised" when the "right answer comes out" and encouraged her to closely examine mail-in ballots in Fulton County, the heavily blue and most populated county in the state
The Post published a lengthy correction to its story:
"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."
Trump responded to the correction, writing:
“You will notice that establishment media errors, omissions, mistakes, and outright lies always slant one way—against me and against Republicans. Meanwhile, stories that hurt Democrats or undermine their narratives are buried, ignored, or delayed until they can do the least harm—for example, after an election is over. Look no further than the negative coverage of the vaccine that preceded the election and the overdue celebration of the vaccine once the election had concluded. A strong democracy requires a fair and honest press. This latest media travesty underscores that legacy media outlets should be regarded as political entities—not journalistic enterprises. In any event, I thank the Washington Post for the correction.”