This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The Washington Post, the personal newspaper of Amazon billionaire and noted Democrat donor Jeff Bezos, says it is standing by its Trump-Russia stories and the Pulitzer Prize they won.

That's even though a 300-page report from Special Counsel John Durham this week confirmed what President Trump has argued all along, that the reporting essentially was a "witch hunt," about a conspiracy theory based on zero evidence.

The now-debunked claims were begun and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and contended that Trump, somehow, was obligated to Russia for his campaign. Actually, those on Clinton's payroll to create the allegations, to divert the public's attention from her own decision to post-national secrets on an unsecure email system, used their own Russian sources to fabricate their claims.

The trouble is that the New York Times and the Washington Post both were given Pulitzers for their reporting on what now is known to be fiction.

Only the Pulitzers weren't in the "fiction" category.

It's not the first time that the Pulitzers have been found to have endorsed fictional narratives. It was a century back that Walter Duranty, working for the New York Times, won a prize for covering the Soviet Union.

And writing as an apologist for Joseph Stalin and his killing machine.

Duranty refused to report on Stalin's death toll and instead claimed "Russians Hungry But Not Starving" even as thousands died.

That Pulitzer never was returned, withdrawn, or amended.

Now it is the Daily Mail that noted the "Left-wing Trump-bashing newspaper has refused to return its 2018 Pulitzer Prize over the now-debunked theory that the ex-president conspired with Russia."

The Post and Times were credited, at the time, when Trump and a few allies were explaining repeatedly that it all was a "witch hunt" without any truth, with the "most-vaunted award in American journalism.

They were credited with "deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage."

The Post now has announced it will keep its "National Reporting" honor and it stands by its reporting, which now has been revealed to be nothing more accurate that political talking points handed out by Democrat operatives.

A Post spokesman claimed a Pulitzer board review claimed no elements of the stories "were discredited by facts" at that time.

Durham's conclusion was blunt: "Neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation."

Yet the prize-winning reports were based on the false assumption there was evidence.

The Daily Mail said many of the Post stories were about Trump campaign staff members who were targeted with various accusations and claims, too.

The Mail said the Times declined to respond to questions about its own Pulitzer.

Congressman Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, is among the many insisting that the publications do not deserve to keep those tainted awards.

Not ago, the Columbia Journalism Review released a scathing report that specifically targeted the Times for its reporting.

Its investigation took 18 months and found the media as a whole disregarded facts. But author Jeff Gerth specifically criticized the Times, explaining the publication had damaged its own credibility seriously.