Washington Post adds lengthy correction to report on Trump call with Georgia elections investigator

The Washington Post has added a lengthy correction to a bombshell report from early January that had said then-President Trump told Georgia’s top elections investigator during a phone call to “find the fraud” and that they would be “a national hero” if they did so. 

“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,” the Post said Thursday in a 129-word correction published atop the story.

“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.'”

The headline and text of the Post report have been corrected to remove quotes misattributed to Trump, the newspaper said.

The correction comes days after The Wall Street Journal obtained audio of the December call between Trump and the investigator.

“When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised,” Trump told Frances Watson, the chief investigator of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, the Journal reported on Thursday.

Watson reportedly responded: “I can assure you that our team and the [Georgia Bureau of Investigation], that we are only interested in the truth and finding the information that is based on the facts.”

The original Post report shook the political world just days after the Jan. 5 run-off elections in Georgia, a contest both Republican senators lost, giving Democrats the majority in the upper chamber. 

The original Post report was covered widely by many media outlets, including the Hill, which has also updated its report on the Trump call.  

During his final weeks in office, Trump repeatedly claimed he only lost the election due to widespread voter fraud and pointed to places like Fulton County, Ga., as examples of a “rigged” election against him. 

Georgia elections officials have rejected those claims after conducting several investigations and audits of the state’s November election results. 

—Updated at 6:37 p.m.