The publication played a key role in covering misconduct allegations against Alabama Republican Roy Moore
The Washington Post came under criticism this week for not covering bodycam footage of Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock’s estranged wife during a domestic dispute in March.
Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler tweeted a lengthy article Wednesday portraying Republicans as mischaracterizing the positions of Warnock and Jon Ossoff. They are challenging Sens. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., and David Perdue, R-Ga., respectively, in the Georgia runoffs on Jan. 5 that will determine Senate control.
“The attack lines being used by Georgia Rs against their Democratic opponents in the Senate run-offs are straight out of Trump’s failed playbook against Biden: Simply invent positions for your opponent, no matter how far-fetched,” he tweeted.
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Conservative writer Stephen Miller replied that one of the GOP attacks on Warnock–regarding his former wife’s criticism of him to police as a “great actor”—had not appeared on the Post’s pages. A search found no mention by the Washington Post of Ouleye Ndoye since Dec. 22, when the video first was reported on by Fox News. The Post did mention their dispute briefly in August in an article about Warnock’s chances of winning, months before the bodycam footage emerged.
The Washington Free Beacon slammed the Post and other news outlets in an editorial Tuesday for ignoring the story about Warnock’s ex-wife, as well as child abuse allegations at a summer camp Warnock ran. The Beacon noted the Post extensively reported on sexual misconduct allegations against Republican Roy Moore in Alabama’s 2017 special U.S. Senate election, which Democrat Doug Jones went on to win in an upset.
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“The news media so determined to reveal Moore’s scandalous behavior have been lethargic, to say the least, when it comes to Warnock: The Democrat has been allowed to wave away the arrest as the ‘overzealous actions of a few police officers,'” the Beacon wrote. “But what was going on at the camp that brought the police there in the first place? And what was Warnock’s role in those incidents? The press hasn’t exhibited the slightest curiosity about events that speak directly to Warnock’s management abilities and judgment.”
Ndoye told an Atlanta police officer during their domestic dispute in March that her husband was “a great actor” and “phenomenal at putting on a really good show,” after Warnock denied her allegations that he deliberately ran over her foot with his car.
“This man’s running for United States Senate, and all he cares about right now is his reputation,” she teafully tells the officer in the video. “I’ve been very quiet about the way that he is for the sake of my kids and his reputation.”
She adds: “I’ve tried to keep the way that he acts under wraps for a long time, and today he crossed the line. So that is what is going on here. And he’s a great actor.”
She filed a report but Warnock was not arrested, and a police report said medical officials did not find evidence she was injured.
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The Warnocks finalized their divorce in May. The couple had been arguing about whether she could take their two children to Senegal for a family funeral.
The comments could be heard on police body camera footage obtained by Tucker Carlson Tonight. The incident was first reported on by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as Warnock was gearing up to run against GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler, in what has become a high-stakes runoff election that will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.
The Washington Post fact-check Kessler tweeted said the facts did not bear out that Ossoff and Warnock would be “carbon copies of the most liberal factions of the Democratic Party,” but it acknowledged that Warnock had not given clear answers on whether he supported packing the Supreme Court, Medicare for All, or supported ending the filibuster.
To bolster Ossoff, it said he had denied hundreds of times he wanted to defund police, but it did not mention a radio interview where he said funding for police departments that failed to live up to hypothetical federal standards should be “on the line.”
A search found the New York Times has also not covered the bodycam video since it came to light.
Fox News’ Bradford Betz contributed to this report.