As ABC News cut to a live break to watch President Trump talk with members of Congress at the White House on Wednesday, someone at the network inserted a fake headline into their chyron announcing that Paul Manafort had pled guilty to five charges of manslaughter.
In reality, the former Trump 2016 presidential campaign chairman is currently in jail awaiting trial on several dozen criminal charges, most of which are related to allegations that he laundered more than $30 million over a decade of undisclosed lobbying on behalf of political interests in Ukraine, including a pro-Russia political party.
However, the charges of manslaughter were a complete fabrication by ABC. This was confirmed by the ABC News PR group’s official Twitter account, which issued a statement apologizing for the fake headline and promising an investigation into how it was allowed to be broadcasted on live television:
Statement from @ABC News: We regret and apologize for the false lower third graphic that aired during our special report. We are investigating how incorrect information was in our system and how and why it was allowed to air. (1/2)
— ABCNews PR (@ABCNewsPR) June 20, 2018
(cont.) We apologize to our viewers and to Mr. Manafort. There simply is no excuse for this sort of mistake. (2/2)
— ABCNews PR (@ABCNewsPR) June 20, 2018
NewsBusters originally caught ABC’s glaring example of fake news and posted a video of the incident which can be viewed here.