The far-left Washington Post published an editor’s note Friday night admitting its leading coverage of the Covington High School story does not line up with the facts.

Nowhere, though, does the Post apologize or even say it regrets smearing a group of innocent Catholic boys.

Here’s a portion of the Post’s statement, undoubtedly published on a Friday night for the same reason politicians release bad news on Friday nights: to limit the exposure and damage:

Subsequent reporting, a student’s statement and additional video allow for a more complete assessment of what occurred, either contradicting or failing to confirm accounts provided in that story — including that Native American activist Nathan Phillips was prevented by one student from moving on, that his group had been taunted by the students in the lead-up to the encounter, and that the students were trying to instigate a conflict. The high school student facing Phillips issued a statement contradicting his account; the bishop in Covington, Ky., apologized for the statement condemning the students; and an investigation conducted for the Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School found the students’ accounts consistent with videos.

The Post’s motto is “Democracy dies in darkness.” Apparently, that doesn’t include walk-backs published in the darkness of a Friday evening.

It seems reasonable to assume the Post’s hand was forced by the $250 million lawsuit filed against the anti-Trump outlet for its outrageously irresponsible attacks on these boys — boys who did absolutely nothing wrong.

Back in January, at the conclusion of the annual March for Life, the boys waited near the Lincoln Memorial for a bus to take them home to Kentucky. Numerous videos of the incident that occurred prove that, for the better part of an hour and while minding their own business, the boys were relentlessly taunted by a nearby group of black nationalists who hurled racist and homophobic slurs at them.

Things came to a head when Nathan Phillips, a left-wing American Indian activist who has repeatedly lied about serving in Vietnam during the war, invaded the boys’ space while beating a drum.

Throughout all of this, as the videos conclusively prove, the boys behaved admirably. Never once did they take the bait from the adults looking to provoke and bully them.

Nevertheless, driven by their own bigotry, a selectively edited video, Phillips’ lies, and a strong desire to put Trump supporters back on defense after BuzzFeed’s fake news faceplant, right along with the rest of the establishment media, the Post turned the boys into villains, most especially, high school junior Nicholas Sandmann, who is guilty of nothing more than remaining calm as the obnoxious Phillips banged a drum in his face.

Until video of the entire episode surfaced and was quickly disseminated by alternative media on social media, throughout the elite media, Sandmann was smeared as a racist, bully, Junior Klansman, and worse.

Sandmann is now represented by attorney L. Lin Wood, who said he intends to file numerous defamation suits against all those in the media who deliberately ran amok with a smear based in large part on their own prejudices — meaning Sandmann’s faith (Christian), skin color, and political beliefs. (He wore a hat with President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.)

Wood’s first lawsuit is against the Post, and many believe he has a very good case, even though America’s libel laws have been rigged to protect irresponsible outlets like the Post.

“The Post rushed to lead the mainstream media to assassinate Nicholas’ character and bully him,” the lawsuit reads, adding that the Post deliberately sought to fan the “flames of the social media mob into a mainstream media frenzy,” which inflicted “substantial reputational and emotional harm” on Sandmann.

The Post practiced “a modern-day form of McCarthyism” by targeting Sandmann, using the newspaper’s “vast financial resources to enter the bully pulpit by publishing a series of false and defamatory print and online articles … to smear a young boy who was in its view an acceptable casualty in their war against the president.”

For his part, Wood does not appear at all satisfied with the Post’s Friday night news dump, which included deleting a tweet that, for more than a month now, has spread lies about Sandmann and incorrectly identified Phillips as a Vietnam veteran:

The Post has issued an Editor’s Note about updates to its initial coverage of the Jan. 18 incident at the Lincoln Memorial: https://t.co/rhzKZ1715K We’ve also deleted this Jan. 19 tweet in light of later developments. For more, see the Editor’s Note. pic.twitter.com/O7qCSnBMPO — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 1, 2019

“Washington Post ‘deletes’ false tweet & immediately reposts it. The act of an arrogant, non-contrite bull,” Wood tweeted. “Media bully learns no lesson until it pays for damage, unequivocally admits wrongdoing & pledges to never again bully & falsely attack child without proper investigation”:

Washington Post “deletes” false tweet & immediately reposts it. The act of an arrogant, non-contrite bully. Media bully learns no lesson until it pays for damage, unequivocally admits wrongdoing & pledges to never again bully & falsely attack child without proper investigation. https://t.co/ArsYDalAms — Lin Wood (@LLinWood) March 2, 2019

“Post has not admitted its fault nor apologized for false ‘bully’ attacks on a minor. Todd McMurtry @FitLwyr & I will issue full statement on Monday responding to Post legal tactics,” he added in another tweet.

“Too little, too late,” he told Fox News.

Last month, after Wood filed his lawsuit, President Trump, who is a frequent victim of the Post’s hysterical bias and fake news, tweeted his best wishes.

“Covington student suing WAPO. Go get them Nick. Fake News,” Trump tweeted.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.