The Washington Post, which recently confessed it published a false report about President Trump based on made-up quotes, now is excoriating President Biden for misinforming the American public.
The newspaper’s fact-checker gave Biden “four Pinocchios,” its harshest rating, for falsely claiming a new Georgia law “ends voting hours early,” Fox News reports.
Biden claimed a law signed by Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp made it harder for working-class people to vote.
“What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It’s sick. It’s sick,” Biden said. “Deciding that you’re going to end voting at five o’clock when working people are just getting off work.”
He even doubled down, stating a day later, “Among the outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over.”
The claim, however, couldn’t be substantiated, said fact-checker Glenn Kessler.
“One could understand a flub in a news conference. But then this same claim popped up in an official presidential statement. Not a single expert we consulted who has studied the law understood why Biden made this claim, as this was the section of law that expanded early voting for many Georgians,” Kessler wrote.
“On Election Day in Georgia, polling places are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and if you are in line by 7 p.m., you are allowed to cast your ballot. Nothing in the new law changes those rules. However, the law did make some changes to early voting. But experts say the net effect was to expand the opportunities to vote for most Georgians, not limit them,” Kessler explained.
He suggested it’s possible that those briefing Biden used an outdated version of the bill.
Kessler said he tried to get an explanation from the White House on Biden’s claims but did not get a response.
“Biden framed his complaint in terms of a slap at working people. The law would ‘end voting at five o’clock when working people are just getting off work’ or ‘ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over,’” Kessler said. “Many listeners might assume he was talking about voting on Election Day, not early voting. But Election Day hours were not changed … an additional mandatory day of early voting on Saturday was added and two days of early voting on Sunday were codified as an option for counties.”
The Post story about Trump alleged in January he told Frances Watson of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office to “find the fraud” in the 2020 election result.
A recording of the Dec. 23 call later disproved the claim.
But the newspaper’s misinformation was reported by multiple news organizations that claimed to have verified the quotes. Eventually, it was used as part of the Democrats’ second impeachment campaign against President Trump.
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