NYT Forced to Issue Major Correction on Fake News

Debbie Young

From Larry O’Connor in The Washington Times:

“Last week the New York Times published the latest charge against Pruitt. They claim Pruitt forces employees at the EPA to do personal favors for the administrator and his family.”

“The most volatile and damning allegation was that Pruitt used his position as Trump’s man at EPA to twist arms at the University of Virginia Law School to get his daughter admitted. The implication is clear. That Pruitt’s daughter was admitted despite her lack of qualifications and only because her daddy is well placed in the Trump Administration.”

“Except, the story wasn’t true.”

“In a massive correction, The Times explains that not only did the recommendation for Pruitt’s daughter (a thing that pretty much every student acquires when applying for a prestigious school like UVA Law) was obtained not only before Pruitt was EPA Administrator, it happened before the presidential election of 2016.”

Here’s the original piece, and the full correction:

“Correction: June 15, 2018

An earlier version of this article included an item that erroneously described Scott Pruitt’s use of his position at the Environmental Protection Agency for personal matters. While a Virginia lawmaker, William Howell, said he wrote a letter of recommendation to the University of Virginia Law School on behalf of Mr. Pruitt’s daughter, McKenna, he actually wrote it while Mr. Pruitt was the attorney general of Oklahoma. After publication of the article, additional research by a legislative aide, Mr. Howell said, showed he had incorrectly stated the date of the letter, which he said was actually written on Nov. 1, 2016, more than three months before Mr. Pruitt was confirmed as E.P.A. administrator, in February 2017. The law school, which had declined to comment for the article because of privacy concerns, issued a statement on Saturday saying Ms. Pruitt had given the school permission to confirm that she had been offered early admission in late November 2016 and that the “application was evaluated according to our usual admissions procedures.” The material about Ms. Pruitt’s application has been removed from the article.”

“Dragging the man’s daughter and her reputation into the bull ring is a step too far even for the DC Swamp,” wrote O’Connor in The Washington Times. “McKenna Pruitt is not a public figure. She did not deserve to have her credentials impugned.”