The most Washington website of all was forced to issue a diplomatic correction on Saturday, in a second recent iteration of perhaps the most Washington story of all: mistaken reporting about diners at Le Diplomate, a restaurant popular with DC politicos.

The website in question was Politico, the capital and Capitol-covering tipsheet which with characteristic capitals informed readers of its Playbook email: “SPOTTED: Speaker NANCY PELOSI, Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER, Sen[ators] AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-Minn) and DICK DURBIN (D-Ill) and Justice SONIA SOTOMAYOR dining together at Le Diplomate on Friday night.”

The email also offered readers a “pic from our intrepid tipster”.

Alas, it did not show Sotomayor.

The “pic” showed French café tables, waiters, diners and a woman turning from her dessert to talk to Klobuchar, who was maskless and sitting opposite a masked-up Durbin. Schumer’s distinctive hairline could be seen next to Durbin and Pelosi could be seen, also maskless, to the right of a dark-haired woman with her back turned: supposedly the supreme court justice.

Politico might have paused before pressing send. Not only could the supposed Sotomayor’s face not be seen but only last month another supposed scandal at “Le Dip” proved to be a “le flop”.

Then, a former Republican aide tweeted that Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, had been turned away.

In fact, they were being seated outside. Politico covered the slip, reporting: “Within minutes we at Playbook were looped into this seemingly momentous news and were pretty excited ourselves to write about it today. Alas, our enthusiasm was dashed when we heard back from a Buttigieg spox who said there was nothing to it.”

On Friday, a Sotomayor sighting would have been news. One of three liberal justices on the supreme court, she had not appeared in person for oral arguments earlier, over Joe Biden’s Covid vaccine mandate for private employers.

Furthermore, in that hearing she had made an inaccurate claim about the Omicron-fuelled Covid-19 surge, saying: “We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition and many on ventilators.”

As the Washington Post fact-checker put it, that was “wildly incorrect”, as “according to HHS data, as of 8 January there are about 5,000 children hospitalised … either with suspected Covid or a confirmed laboratory test”.

The Politico photo also came amid continuing speculation about when or if another liberal, Stephen Breyer, might retire, thereby giving Joe Biden a pick for the court before possible loss of the Senate. Schumer would shepherd any nominee into place.

Alas for Politico, it soon became clear its tipster was wrong. The woman in the picture was Iris Weinshall, the chief operating officer of the New York Public Library, who is married to Schumer.

A correction ensued but to make matters worse, Weinshall was initially identified only by her husband’s name. To make matters worse still, Schumer’s office told other outlets that unlike in le grande affaire de Buttigieg, Politico had not called to check on the tip from “Le Dip”.

Politico acknowledged the slip and said standards had not been met.

“We deeply regret the error,” it said.