On Sunday afternoon, the Washington Post published a partial response from former president Donald Trump who called their Jan 6th investigative reports "fake news" and claimed that he "greatly objected to them."
The Post also stated they would not subject their readers to the entire text because it was larded with "unrelated, inflammatory claims" that they refused to have any part in publishing.
Days after the Wall Street Journal published a letter from the one-term president that was loaded with misinformation -- leading the conservative publication to fact-check it after the fact due to widespread criticism -- the Post appears to have avoided the same fate.
Under a byline that read, "Washington Post Staff," they wrote they had published a three-part investigation on Sunday that "found that law enforcement officials failed to heed mounting red flags that there would be violence when Congress formalized the electoral college vote on Jan. 6," adding that it was based on "interviews with 230 people and thousands of pages of court documents and internal law enforcement reports."
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After supplying Trump and his advisors with a list of 37 findings they had reported upon, the paper revealed they received an answer from Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich, reporting he had responded with "a lengthy written response that included series of unrelated, inflammatory claims that The Post is not publishing in full."
Before publishing what they felt was suitable from the former president, the Post noted, "In response to the investigation's findings, Budowich said that the former president 'greatly objected' to all of them. He disputed The Post's investigation as 'fake news' and falsely cast people who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 as 'agitators not associated with President Trump.' The statement repeated Trump's false claim that the 2020 election was rigged."
You can read the portion they agreed to publish here.
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