Washington Post Issues Massive Correction to Report on Trump Call to Georgia Official That ‘Misquoted’ His Comments

The Washington Post has issued a correction to an earlier story that had quoted former President Donald Trump as instructing a Georgia election official “find the fraud” in the state, after audio of the phone call was released.

State officials located the recording on a trash folder on a device belonging to Frances Watson, the chief investigator for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger while responding to a public records request, the Post reported.

The Wall Street Journal published the audio last week.

The Post had reported in early January that while on the Dec. 23, 2020, call, Trump said that Frances Watson, the chief investigator for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, should “find the fraud,” and that she would be a “national hero,” according to Jordan Fuchs, the deputy secretary of state.

According to the correction and revised story, Trump did not say either of those things.

“Instead,” the correction said, “Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting that she would find ‘dishonesty’ there. He also told her that she had ‘the most important job in the country right now.’”

Here is the Post’s correction in full:

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.

In February, Raffensperger’s office launched an investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia, which President Joe Biden won in the 2020 presidential election. Some conservatives have blamed Trump for Republican senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue losing their seats to Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in January’s runoff election in the state.

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