We ran down the rabbit trail

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger testified yesterday (June 21, 2022) before the January 6 Congressional Committee regarding Trump’s attempts at overturning the 2020 election. Raffensperger recounted how the state of Georgia looked into every allegation that was made by Trump and his team:

Raffensperger said the state had conducted nearly 300 investigations into the allegations and found nothing wrong. “Every single allegation we checked. We ran down the rabbit trail to make sure our numbers were accurate,” he said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-congress-jan-6-committee-zero-pressure-over-georgia-election-results-2022-06-21/

This is a triple conflation of “run down” (to track down someone or something), “go down the rabbit hole” (to begin a process or journey that is strange or complicated) and “follow the paper trail” (examine the physical documentation of a person’s activities). Given the wild and false allegations by Trump, Giuliani, and others, the speaker may have been thinking of Alice in Wonderland when he uttered this nice malaphor.

A tip of the hat to Jim Kozlowski for hearing this one and sending it in!