[DAILYWIRE] An audio recording that forced multiple major news outlets to issue corrections to stories that attributed fraudulent quotes to former President Donald Trump...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat
The Smartest Woman in the Worldin the general election...
was reportedly found on the device of the chief investigator of the Georgia secretary of state’s office.Trump made a call to the chief investigator, La Belle Frances Watson, on Dec. 23 to discuss alleged fraud in the 2020 election, asking her to look into votes cast in Fulton County, Georgia, especially. Reports of the call published the next month by The Washington Post, CNN
...formerly the
Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for...
, and others quoted Trump as telling Watson to "find the fraud" and claiming she would be a "national hero" if she did.
An audio recording of the call published last week showed that Trump made neither statement, debunking news outlets’ claims that were sourced back to a single anonymous source.
The recording of the call was obtained through an open records request to the Georgia secretary of state’s office. Officials reportedly located the file in a trash folder on Watson’s device, according to CNN. As the outlet reported on Monday:
The lesson, dear Reader, is that if you simply must lie, cheat, and/or steal, regularly delete the contents of your computer’s trash folder.
Official in Georgia SOS Office Was Sole Source on Trump Phone Call
[EpochTimes] An official in the Georgia secretary of state’s office was the only source for at least one story that falsely claimed former President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and whatever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
told an investigator with the office to "find the fraud."
Jordan Fuchs, deputy secretary of state, relayed details of the conversation to The Washington Post, an official with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office confirmed to The Epoch Times.
Fuchs was not on the call herself. She was told about the conversation by La Belle Frances Watson, the investigator.
A recording of the call recently emerged from a records request, showing that the Post and a slew of other outlets had falsely reported Trump uttering several phrases.
The office of Raffensperger, a Republican, says Fuchs did not present details of the conversation as verbatim.
"The Secretary of State’s Office’s first reports of its investigator’s phone conversation with President Trump relied on the investigator’s recollection. Information about the content of the call was never presented as a word-for-word transcript," a spokesperson with the office told The Epoch Times via email.
The Post said that it "misquoted" Trump, "based on information provided by a source." It also outed Fuchs as its source, after previously describing her as an individual familiar with the call.
The News Agency that Dare Not be Named in its correction used similar wording in explaining that it "erroneously reported" that Trump pressured Watson to "find the fraud," and that if she did, she would be a national hero.
CNN
...formerly the
Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for...
offered an editor’s note in stating that its initial version "presented paraphrasing of the President’s comments to the Georgia elections investigator as direct quotes."
The News Agency that Dare Not be Named and the Post declined to answer questions about the reporting, such as whether they would commit to no longer using Fuchs as a source. CNN, ABC News, NBC News, and Rooters didn’t return inquiries. Among the outlets, all have updated their original articles except for Rooters.
All of the outlets reported on the conversation by relying on a single source, who appears to have been Fuchs in every case.
Several generations ago, news hounds largely couldn’t pursue stories without at least two sources, Andrew Schotz with the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics Committee told The Epoch Times.
Raffensperger’s office is defending the leaking of call details, arguing that while news outlets falsely reported several Trump quotes, the substance of the recollection was accurate.
"After hearing the tape, it’s clear that her recollection accurately portrayed the president’s assertions that there was fraud to uncover and that she would receive praise for doing it," a front man said, referring to Watson.
That sentiment was echoed by news outlets in their updates: most offered editor’s notes instead of corrections and painstakingly outlined how Trump had uttered phrases similar to what they had originally reported, indicating journalists felt their initial stories were largely correct.