Incorrect information from government sources apparently led three separate news organizations to publish the same erroneous claim about Rudolph W. Giuliani last week that all three later corrected.
The Washington Post, the New York Times and NBC News all reported Thursday that the FBI had briefed the lawyer to President Donald Trump that he was a target of a Russian disinformation campaign during his efforts to dig up unflattering information about then-candidate Joe Biden in 2019.
In fact, the news organizations later said in corrections appended to their stories Saturday that Giuliani had not been briefed by the FBI.
The original stories were published after Wednesday’s FBI raid of Giuliani’s office and home, part of a criminal investigation of his activities in Ukraine. In the corrected versions of their stories, both The Post and NBC reported that the FBI was aware that Giuliani was a target of a Russian operation — and that it planned to warn him about this but ultimately did not.