Thanks to information found on a government device, former President Donald Trump has been vindicated.
Mainstream Media Lies Uncovered
A major talking point during the Democrats‘ second attempt to impeach Trump was proven to be false, despite the media’s efforts to continue pushing the narrative.
An audio recording of a phone call discovered on a device belonging to the chief investigator of the Georgia secretary of state’s office proved that two quotes that the mainstream media attributed to Trump were entirely false.
The call took place on December 23 between Trump and the chief investigator, Frances Watson. Trump was asking Watson to look into votes and possible fraud in Fulton County, Georgia. The mainstream media, citing anonymous sources, reported that Trump told Watson to “find the fraud” and told her that she would be a “national hero” if she did.
Now that the recording, which was obtained through an open records request to the Georgia secretary of state’s office, was made public, it is obvious that the mainstream media’s reporting on the phone call was false.
According to CNN, the audio file was found in the trash folder on Watson’s device.
The Washington Post was forced to issue a correction after the information came out, writing:
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.
Many people are concerned about journalistic ethics relating to the publication of the original story, as several news outlets reported the same quotes and stated that they confirmed the story, also with anonymous sources. It appears as though every outlet used the same anonymous source. Before journalism became this corrupted, it was customary to need several different sources to confirm a story, and typically they weren’t all anonymous.
Trump’s Response
Donald Trump released a statement on March 15 responding to the news. He thanked the Washington Post, which was the first news outlet to publish the original story containing the fraudulent quotes, for issuing a correction. Trump also blasted the media for their bias against conservatives.
“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,” Trump said.
“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,” he added. “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.”
The Bottom Line
The mainstream media is a joke. This story just highlights the fact that the media relies heavily on unnamed, anonymous sources to confirm negative stories about conservatives, while refusing to report on negative stories about the left. Looking back at the ‘Anonymous’ scandal, where the media became obsessed with an op-ed and subsequent book from a top White House ‘insider’ trashing Trump, we see a pattern. The media is much more likely to believe and report on anonymously sourced stories that hurt Republicans. After the identity of ‘Anonymous’ was revealed to be a low-level staffer within the Department of Homeland Security, even the left had to come out and say that the media allowing a low-level employee to be portrayed anonymously as a top official was absolutely ridiculous and reflected poorly on the media. The same is happening with this story, as the media scrambles to correct their reporting and tries to claim that, although the quotes were incorrect, the story is still somehow the same. How long until these media outlets begin to lose the trust of their own audience? They can’t hide their lack of integrity forever.
