National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy has apologized for accusing The New York Times of changing a story's online headline for political reasons.

McCarthy initially charged that The New York Times had changed the headline of a web story related to President Trump's connections to Russia after the fact due to a "shifting political narrative."

The Times's front-page headline for the story in a mid-January print edition read, "Wiretapped data used in inquiry of Trump aides," with two sub-headlines: "Examining Russian ties" and "Business dealings of campaign advisers are investigated." Online, the same story was topped with a single headline, "Intercepted Russian communications part of inquiry into Trump associates."

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McCarthy suggested that after Trump's allegation that President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower, the media needed to downplay reporting about the Obama administration's investigation into Trump's possible connections with Russia.

"[D]uring the four months when the media-Democrat complex wanted you to believe there was a Trump–Putin conspiracy to hack the election, they needed you to believe that the Justice Department was targeting Trump associates for surveillance because they were Russian agents," McCarthy wrote in his column. "Now that they don’t want you to believe there was an investigation — because that would be an Obama abuse of power — they want to convince you that Trump associates were never targeted for surveillance."

However, The New York Times had not changed its online headline, but had originally run different headlines in its print paper and website.