The Washington Post and the Pulitzer Prize Board are refusing to answer questions about an award-winning 2017-story that relied on the Trump-Russia collusion hoax — an article which a key player in the story told investigators long ago was “wrong.”
Just the News reported earlier this month that former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers told FBI agents that the crux of a Pulitzer Prize award-winning Washington Post story on the Russian collusion hoax was “wrong.” More than two weeks later the release of those documents, neither the outlet — whose branding is “Democracy Dies in Darkness” — nor the board responsible for arguably the most prestigious award in journalism, are answering questions about the refutation by Rogers, which was revealed in newly-declassified Crossfire Hurricane files.
Prize-winning story rebuked only one month after publication
Admiral Rogers, who retired in 2018 after four years as NSA chief and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, spoke with FBI agents and a key member of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in June 2017, where he dismantled a May 2017 story by the Post titled, “Trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe after Comey revealed its existence.”
The Post story would go on to be among the Russiagate stories published by the outlet to win a Pulitzer Prize for “a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs” in 2018. Trump is currently suing the Pulitzer Board for defamation for continuing to defend the awards it gave to this collusion-related story and others.
After two weeks and multiple requests for comment, the Pulitzer Prize Board and the Washington Post have yet to respond to requests for comment by Just the News about the 2017 story and the 2018 award, about whether they had known about the refutation by Rogers, and what their reaction was to the newly-declassified FBI interview by the ex-NSA chief. The board did not answer whether this made them reconsider the granting of their award, and the outlet still refuses to answer whether they would correct or update the story.
The recently released Rogers interview with the Mueller team shows that the then-NSA director was read a quote from The Washington Post article — that “President Trump urged [Rogers] to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election” — with the FBI notes stating that “Rogers responded that the media characterization was wrong, and the President had asked about the existence of SIGINT [signals intelligence] evidence only.”
The Post claimed that its story “add[ed] to a growing body of evidence that Trump sought to co-opt and then undermine Comey before he fired him” in May 2017. The alleged evidence was refuted by Rogers, and the 2019 Mueller report said the investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Hellbound and Down 