The Republican Party posted a quote on Twitter Friday about freedom, of all things, that was falsely attributed to George Washington.
It was quickly shot down by a CNN reporter.
The GOP tweeted on Friday: “Let freedom be free.” It added a quote allegedly from Washington saying: “It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.”
But CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski fired back that Washington had nothing to do with the quote, according to the George Washington Mount Vernon Estate. It lists the phrase under “spurious quotations.”
Kaczynski helpfully included a link with his corrective tweet.
The estate has been unable to definitively trace the actual origin of the quote. One Twitter wag attributed it to a 1650 letter written by Oliver Cromwell, a British politician of the 1600s. Several other fact-checking websites agreed.
Critics on Twitter found it searingly ironic that the GOP screwed up a quote about freedom amid the party’s crackdowns on reproductive rights for women, human rights for the LGBTQ community, people of color and voting rights.
The GOP quote was still up late Saturday night, and still falsely attributed to Washington.