Politico on Saturday corrected its closely-watched Playbook newsletter after it mistakenly reported that Justice Sonia Sotomayor dined alongside top Democratic lawmakers at a fancy D.C. restaurant hours after remotely participating in Supreme Court arguments.
The outlet had incorrectly reported that the liberal justice, who had participated in oral arguments over the Biden vaccine mandates from her chambers earlier Friday, had dined at Le Diplomate alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
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Playbook also published an image of the dinner, which showed Klobuchar and Durbin alongside a woman with dark hair whose face was not visible.
The reporting quickly sparked outrage from commentators online who saw hypocrisy from the Obama appointee, noting that Sotomayor had not only participated remotely in the earlier hearings, but had used alarmist language, including overstating the number of child hospitalizations.
“We have hospitals that are almost at full capacity with people severely ill on ventilators. We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, many on ventilators,” she said during arguments.
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However, as the outrage bubbled, Politico corrected the story, clarifying that it was Sen. Schumer’s wife who was at the dinner, not Sotomayor.
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“This morning’s Playbook had a photo of a Friday dinner at Le Diplomate and misidentified Iris Schumer, the majority leader’s wife, as Sonia Sotomayor,” the outlet said.
“Our tipster got it wrong, but we should have double-checked. We deeply regret the error.”
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The correction in the Playbook was later updated to note that Sen. Schumer’s wife’s name is in fact Iris Weinshall, not Iris Schumer.
The court heard arguments for nearly four hours Friday over federal vaccine and testing rules for businesses with 100 employees or more and on vaccine mandates for health care workers at facilities receiving Medicaid and Medicare funding.
Enforcement of the policies, which were announced in November, has been put on hold pending resolution in the court.
