Obama spokesperson dismisses ‘bizarre allegations’ from Trump and Gabbard as ‘ridiculous’
In a statement sent to reporters on Tuesday, a spokesperson for former president Barack Obama dismissed Donald Trump’s “ridiculous” accusation that Obama had committed “treason” in 2016, by directing his administration to reveal, after the 2016 election, that the Russian government had attempted to boost Trump’s candidacy.
Here is the full statement from Obama’s spokesperson, Patrick Rodenbush:
Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.
Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.
The statement came after Trump claimed on Tuesday that documents reviewed by his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, prove that Obama was “guilty”.
But Gabbard’s accusation is based on the false claim that Obama and officials in his administration had suppressed “intelligence showing ‘Russian and criminal actors did not impact’ the 2016 presidential election via cyber-attacks on infrastructure”.
Obama and his administration never made that claim. Instead they made the case that Russia had attempted to interfere in the 2016 election through a social-media influence campaign and by hacking and releasing, via Wikileaks, email from Democratic officials and Hillary Clinton’s campaign aides. That conclusion was borne out by special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report and by a bipartisan 2020 report by the Senate intelligence committee whose members included then senator Marco Rubio.
Speaking in the Oval Office during a meeting with the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Trump deflected a question about Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender Trump socialized with for more than a decade, calling the uproar over Epstein “sort of a witch hunt”. He then added the baseless claim that, in 2020, Obama and those around him also “tried to rig the election, and they got caught”.
“The witch hunt you should be talking about is that they caught President Obama absolutely cold”, Trump added.
Key events
Bondi goes to war with federal judges in New Jersey over removal of Alina Habba as US attorney
It was unclear on Tuesday whether New Jersey currently has one top prosecutor, or two, or none, after a panel of federal judges first voted to replace Donald Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba, whose 120-term as interim US attorney expires this week, with her deputy, Desiree Grace, and Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, then responded by denouncing the judges and announcing that she had removed Grace from her position as deputy.
Habba has been serving as New Jersey’s interim US attorney since her appointment by Trump in March, but was limited by law to 120 days in office unless the district court agreed to keep her in place. The US Senate has not yet acted on her formal nomination to the role, which was submitted by Trump this month.
After the judges voted not to keep Habba in place, chief judge Renée Marie Bumb, who was nominated by George W. Bush in 2006, issued an order on Tuesday appointing Grace US attorney for the district of New Jersey. The order noted that Grace’s appointment would begin either on Tuesday or later in the week, given some uncertainty about when Habba’s 12-day term began.
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, also a former defense lawyer for Trump, accused the panel of judges, led by a Republican appointee, of pursuing “a left-wing agenda” by replacing Habba, who had no prior experience as a prosecutor, with Grace, a career prosecutor.
Bondi echoed Blanche’s claim in a social media post in which she wrote that Habba had been the victim of “politically minded judges”.
In response, Bondi wrote, Grace “has just been removed” from her position as Habba’s deputy.
“This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the President’s core Article II powers”, the attorney general added.
Habba’s prior legal experience included unsuccessfully defending Trump in civil litigation, including a trial in which a jury found Trump liable for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s.
The lawyer soon became an outspoken political surrogate for Trump, however, defending him, and attacking Democrats, in a series of television appearances, particularly on Fox and other partisan, pro-Trump outlets.
New Jersey’s two Democratic senators, Corey Booker and Andy Kim, strongly opposed Habba’s nomination and successfully blocked it. Habba has used her time in office to pursue a series of nakedly partisan arrests, including of Newark’s mayor Ras Baraka and congresswoman LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat who was charged with assaulting federal agents during an oversight visit to a migrant detention center in Newark where Baraka was detained.
The Senate voted 50-48 on Tuesday to proceed to debate on the nomination of Donald Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, Emil Bove, to fill a vacancy as a judge on a federal appeals court. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican to join all of the chamber’s Democratic senators in voting against Bove.
There has been speculation that Trump wants his former lawyer, who is just 44, to be in place for possible consideration for a spot on the supreme court if either Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas retires soon.
After Trump appointed him acting deputy attorney general, Bove ordered federal prosecutors in New York to dismiss corruption charges against the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, in return for his cooperation in immigration enforcement.
Danielle Sassoon, the acting US attorney for the southern district of New York, refused and wrote to Bove that the mayor’s lawyers had “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed”.
Sassoon also wrote that Bove had scolded a member of her team for taking notes at the meeting with the mayor’s legal team and ordered that the notes be confiscated.
As our colleague Chris Stein reported, Bove’s nomination for the lifetime position has faced strident opposition from Democrats, after Erez Reuveni, a former justice department official who was fired from his post, alleged that during Bove’s time at the justice department, he had told lawyers that they “would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order” blocking efforts to remove immigrants to El Salvador. In testimony before the committee last month, Bove denied the accusation, and Reuveni later provided text messages that supported his claim.
Chris Stein
Republicans announced Tuesday that the House of Representatives will call it quits a day early and head home in the face of persistent Democratic efforts to force Republicans into voting on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The chamber was scheduled be in session through Thursday before the annual five-week summer recess, but on Tuesday, the Republican majority announced that the last votes of the week would take place the following day. Democrats in turn accused the GOP of leaving town rather than dealing with the outcry over Donald Trump’s handling of the investigation into the alleged sex trafficker.
“They are actually ending this week early because they’re afraid to cast votes on the Jeffrey Epstein issue,” said Ted Lieu, the vice-chair of the House Democratic caucus.
Republicans downplayed the decision to cut short the workweek, while arguing that the White House had already moved to resolve questions about the case. Last week, Trump asked the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to release grand jury testimony, although that is expected to be only a fraction of the case’s documents.
“We’re going to have committee meetings through Thursday, and there’s still a lot of work being done,” said the majority leader, Steve Scalise. “The heavy work is done in committee and there is a lot of work being done this week before we head out.” He declined to answer a question about whether votes were cut short over the Epstein files.
Warren says Trump’s claim that new owners of CBS agreed to give him $20m in free ads ‘reeks of corruption’
Senator Elizabeth Warren said Donald Trump’s claim that he expects to receive $20m in free advertising, public service announcements or similar programming from the new owners of CBS, “reeks of corruption”.
Warren was responding to Trump’s boast that he would be paid $20m by the new owners of the network in addition to the $16m from the current owners he received on Tuesday to drop his lawsuit claiming that he had been damaged by the routine editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris last year.
On Monday Warren, and fellow senators Bernie Sanders and Ron Wyden, wrote to David Ellison, whose company Skydance needs federal approval to buy CBS owner Paramount, to ask if he struck any “secret side deal” with Trump, or had played any part in the decision to cancel Trump critic Stephen Colbert’s late-night CBS show.
After Trump claimed that he did make a deal with Ellison’s company before federal approval was granted, Warren asked Skydance to confirm the news in a social media post of her own.
“CBS canceled Late Night with Stephen Colbert—a show they called ‘a staple of the nation’s zeitgeist’—just three days after Colbert called out Paramount for its $16 million settlement with Trump”, Warren wrote in a second post. “Was his show canceled for political reasons? Americans deserve to know.”
Later on Tuesday, Congressman Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat, responded to Trump’s boast about the $20m he expects from the network’s new owner with the comment: “He’s bragging about taking bribes… In broad daylight.”
Obama spokesperson dismisses ‘bizarre allegations’ from Trump and Gabbard as ‘ridiculous’
In a statement sent to reporters on Tuesday, a spokesperson for former president Barack Obama dismissed Donald Trump’s “ridiculous” accusation that Obama had committed “treason” in 2016, by directing his administration to reveal, after the 2016 election, that the Russian government had attempted to boost Trump’s candidacy.
Here is the full statement from Obama’s spokesperson, Patrick Rodenbush:
Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.
Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.
The statement came after Trump claimed on Tuesday that documents reviewed by his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, prove that Obama was “guilty”.
But Gabbard’s accusation is based on the false claim that Obama and officials in his administration had suppressed “intelligence showing ‘Russian and criminal actors did not impact’ the 2016 presidential election via cyber-attacks on infrastructure”.
Obama and his administration never made that claim. Instead they made the case that Russia had attempted to interfere in the 2016 election through a social-media influence campaign and by hacking and releasing, via Wikileaks, email from Democratic officials and Hillary Clinton’s campaign aides. That conclusion was borne out by special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report and by a bipartisan 2020 report by the Senate intelligence committee whose members included then senator Marco Rubio.
Speaking in the Oval Office during a meeting with the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Trump deflected a question about Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender Trump socialized with for more than a decade, calling the uproar over Epstein “sort of a witch hunt”. He then added the baseless claim that, in 2020, Obama and those around him also “tried to rig the election, and they got caught”.
“The witch hunt you should be talking about is that they caught President Obama absolutely cold”, Trump added.
The day so far
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Despite the best efforts of Donald Trump and his allies to change the subject, the Jeffrey Epstein firestorm – which Trump today derided as “a witch hunt” – just won’t die. This morning, the justice department announced it hopes to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell to find out if she has “information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims” of Epstein. Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said he anticipated meeting with Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking and other crimes, “in the coming days”. “We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case,” David Oscar Markus, an attorney for Maxwell, wrote on X, inspiring suggestions that Maxwell will seek for a pardon or commutation of her sentence from Trump.
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But the New York federal court handling the Epstein and Maxwell case said it would like to “expeditiously” resolve the Trump administration’s request to unseal grand jury testimony, but it could not do so due to a number of missing submissions. The justice department did not submit to the court the Epstein-related grand jury transcripts it wants to unseal, the judge said, and requested that the justice department submit the transcripts by next Tuesday under seal, so that the court can decide on the request to unseal them. The government had also not “adequately” addressed the “factors” that district courts weigh in considering applications for disclosure, including “why disclosure is being sought in the particular case” and “what specific information is being sought for disclosure”, the judge wrote.
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And despite the GOP’s valiant attempts to blame this all on the Democrats, there is ever more proof in the congressional pudding that this is very much a bipartisan issue (let’s not forget, it was Trump’s Maga base that kicked this all off). The embattled House speaker Mike Johnson (who is among those Republicans who have actually called for the evidence to be released) shut down operation of the chamber a day early, scrapping Thursday’s scheduled votes after the party lost control of the floor over bipartisan pressure to vote on releasing Epstein-related files. That means there won’t be any more floor votes until lawmakers return from summer recess in September.
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The House Oversight Committee also voted to subpoena Maxwell for testimony after recess.
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Trump announced that the Philippines will pay a 19% tariff rate following the conclusion of a trade deal with the United States.
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The New York Times defended the Wall Street Journal after the Trump administration decided to bar the global outlet from the White House press pool following its investigative coverage of ties between Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In a public statement, a Times spokesperson said the White House’s actions represented “simple retribution by a president against a news organization for doing reporting that he doesn’t like”, warning that “such actions deprive Americans of information about how their government operates”.
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NPR’s editor-in-chief, Edith Chapin, has told colleagues that she is stepping down later this year. It comes just days after federal lawmakers voted in support of Trump’s plan to claw back $1.1bn from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the umbrella organization that funds both NPR and the non-commercial TV network PBS.
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A US appeals court declined to lift restrictions imposed by Trump’s administration on White House access by Associated Press journalists after the news organization declined to refer to the body of water long called the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
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The state department claimed one of the reasons for the US’s withdrawal from Unesco was the organization’s decision to admit Palestine as a member state, which was “contrary to US policy and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization” [a charge the Trump administration frequently directs at the United Nations at large]. The state department also said that remaining in Unesco was not in the national interest, accusing it of having “a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy”. Trump pulled the US out of Unesco during his first term too.
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Elon Musk may return to US politics, Bloomberg News is reporting, citing SpaceX documents and people familiar with the content.
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Trump said he had received from CBS parent company Paramount $16m as part of a lawsuit settlement and that he expects to receive $20m more.
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A panel of judges in the US district court in New Jersey declined to permanently appoint Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba as the state’s top federal prosecutor, according to an order from the court.
NPR’s editor-in-chief to step down days after Congress cuts $1.1bn in funding
Edward Helmore
The editor-in-chief of the US public radio network NPR has told colleagues that she is stepping down later this year.
Edith Chapin’s announcement comes just days after federal lawmakers voted in support of Donald Trump’s plan to claw back $1.1bn from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the umbrella organization that funds both NPR and the non-commercial TV network PBS.
Chapin informed Katherine Maher, NPR’s chief executive, of her intention to step down before lawmakers approved the cuts but will stay on to help with the transition, according to what she told the outlet.
Chapin has been with NPR since 2012 after spending 25 years at CNN. She has been NPR’s top editor – along with chief content officer – since 2023.
In an interview with NPR’s media reporter, David Folkenflik, Chapin said she had informed Maher two weeks ago of her decision to leave.
“I have had two big executive jobs for two years and I want to take a break. I want to make sure my performance is always top-notch for the company,” Chapin told NPR.
Nonetheless, Chapin’s departure is bound to be seen in the context of an aggressive push by the Trump administration to cut government support of public radio, including NPR and Voice of America.
Trump has described PBS and NPR as “radical left monsters” that have a bias against conservatives. In an executive order in May, the president called for the end of taxpayer subsidization of the organizations.
Trump later called on Congress to cancel public broadcaster funding over the next two years via a rescission, or cancellation, request. That was approved by both houses of Congress on Friday, taking back $1.1bn.
In an essay published by the Columbia Journalism Review on Tuesday, Guardian writer Hamilton Nolan said that while NPR and PBS will survive, “the existence of small broadcasters in rural, red-state news deserts is now endangered”.
SpaceX warns investors Elon Musk could return to US politics – report
Elon Musk, who infamously served as a senior adviser to Donald Trump before a very public – and very spectacular – bust-up with his former buddy, may return to US politics, Bloomberg News is reporting, citing SpaceX documents and people familiar with the content.
The company added that the language laying out such “risk factors” in paperwork sent to investors discussing a tender offer, according to Bloomberg. It is also believed to be the first time this language has appeared in these tender offers.
Earlier this month, Musk announced his decision to start to bankroll a new US political party – the “America” party – and suggested it could initially focus on a handful of attainable House and Senate seats while striving to be the decisive vote on major issues amid the thin margins in Congress.
The tech billionaire had previously stepped back from his role in Trump’s White House as he sought to salvage his battered reputation which was hurting his companies, including Tesla.
He then fell out with Trump over the president’s signature sweeping tax and spending bill, which Musk slammed as “bankrupting” the country (the bill also repeals green energy tax credits that benefit the likes of Tesla).
Trump says he received $16m payment after Paramount lawsuit settlement
Donald Trump said CBS parent company Paramount paid $16m on Tuesday as part of a lawsuit settlement and that he expects to receive $20m more.
Paramount earlier this month agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over an interview with former vice-president Kamala Harris that the network broadcast in October.
“We have just achieved a BIG AND IMPORTANT WIN in our Historic Lawsuit against 60 Minutes, CBS, and Paramount… Paramount/CBS/60 Minutes have today paid $16 Million Dollars in settlement, and we also anticipate receiving $20 Million Dollars more from the new Owners,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Judges vote to replace ex-Trump attorney Habba as interim US attorney of New Jersey
A panel of judges in the US district court in New Jersey declined to permanently appoint Donald Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba as the state’s top federal prosecutor, according to an order from the court.
Habba has been serving as New Jersey’s interim US attorney since her appointment by Trump in March, but was limited by law to 120 days in office unless the court agreed to keep her in place. The US Senate has not yet acted on her formal nomination to the role, submitted by Trump this month.
The court instead appointed the office’s number two attorney, Desiree Grace, the order said.
Last week, the US district court for the northern district of New York declined to keep Trump’s US attorney pick John Sarcone in place after his 120-day term neared expiration. Sarcone managed to stay in the office after the justice department found a workaround by naming him as “special attorney to the attorney general”, according to the New York Times.
Habba’s brief tenure as New Jersey’s interim US attorney included the filing of multiple legal actions against Democratic elected officials.
Her office brought criminal charges against US representative LaMonica McIver, as she and other members of Congress and Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, tried to visit an immigration detention center.
The scene grew chaotic after immigration agents tried to arrest Baraka for trespassing, and McIver’s elbows appeared to make brief contact with an immigration officer.
Habba’s office charged McIver with two counts of assaulting and impeding a law enforcement officer. McIver has pleaded not guilty.
Habba’s office did not follow justice department rules which require prosecutors to seek permission from the Public Integrity Section before bringing criminal charges against a member of Congress for conduct related to their official duties.
Her office also charged Baraka, but later dropped the case, prompting a federal magistrate judge to criticize her office for its handling of the matter.
Until March, Habba had never worked as a prosecutor.
She represented Trump in a variety of civil litigation, including a trial in which a jury found that Trump had sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll in a New York department store changing room 27 years ago.
In 2023, a federal judge in Florida sanctioned Trump and Habba and ordered them to pay $1m for filing a frivolous lawsuit which alleged that Hillary Clinton and others conspired to damage Trump’s reputation in the investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump announces Philippines will pay a 19% tariff
Donald Trump has said that the Philippines will pay a 19% tariff rate following the conclusion of a trade deal with the United States.
“It was a beautiful visit, and we concluded our Trade Deal, whereby The Philippines is going OPEN MARKET with the United States, and ZERO Tariffs,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos’s visit to the White House.
“The Philippines will pay a 19% Tariff. In addition, we will work together Militarily,” Trump wrote, referring to Marcos as “a very good, and tough, negotiator”.
US appeals court won’t lift limits on Associated Press access to White House
On this subject, a US appeals court has declined to lift restrictions imposed by Donald Trump’s administration on White House access by Associated Press journalists after the news organization declined to refer to the body of water long called the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America as he prefers.
The full US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit kept in place a 6 June decision by a divided three-judge panel that the administration could legally restrict access to the AP to news events in the Oval Office and other locations controlled by the White House including Air Force One.
The DC circuit order denied the AP’s request that it review the matter, setting up a possible appeal to the US supreme court.
In a lawsuit filed in February, the AP argued that the limitations on its access imposed by the administration violated the constitution’s first amendment protections against government abridgment of free speech.
Trump in January signed an executive order officially directing federal agencies to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The AP sued after the White House restricted its access over its decision not to use “Gulf of America” in its news reports.
The AP stylebook states that the Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. AP said that as a global news agency it will refer to the body of water by its longstanding name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.
Reuters and the AP both issued statements denouncing the access restrictions, which put wire services in a larger rotation with about 30 other newspaper and print outlets. Other media customers, including local news outlets with no presence in Washington, rely on real-time reports by the wire services of presidential statements, as do global financial markets.
The Trump administration has said the president has absolute discretion over media access to the White House.
The AP won a key order in the trial court when US district judge Trevor McFadden, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, decided that if the White House opens its doors to some journalists it cannot exclude others based on their viewpoints, citing the First Amendment.
The DC circuit panel in its 2-1 ruling in June paused McFadden’s order. The two judges in the majority, Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, were appointed by Trump during his first term in office. The dissenting judge, Cornelia Pillard, is an appointee of Democratic former president Barack Obama.
‘Simple retribution’: NY Times defends WSJ after White House ban from press pool
Joseph Gedeon
Further to my last post, the New York Times is defending the Wall Street Journal after the Trump administration decided to bar the global outlet from the White House press pool following its investigative coverage of ties between Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In the public statement, a Times spokesperson said the White House’s actions represented “simple retribution by a president against a news organization for doing reporting that he doesn’t like”, warning that “such actions deprive Americans of information about how their government operates”.
“The White House’s refusal to allow one of the nation’s leading news organizations to cover the highest office in the country is an attack on core constitutional principles underpinning free speech and a free press,” the spokesperson said.
“Americans regardless of party deserve to know and understand the actions of the president, and reporters play a vital role in advancing that public interest.”
White House faces backlash after barring WSJ from Scotland trip press pool over Epstein story
The White House is facing backlash after banning the Wall Street Journal from the press pool set to cover Donald Trump’s upcoming trip to his golf courses in Scotland.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the change was made “due to the Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct”, referring to the newspaper’s recent article alleging the US president sent Jeffrey Epstein a 50th birthday letter that included a drawing of a naked woman. The US president promptly sued the paper for $10bn. The WSJ has stood by its reporting.
“This attempt by the White House to punish a media outlet whose coverage it does not like is deeply troubling, and it defies the First Amendment,” said Weijia Jiang, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, in a statement to the Guardian. She added:
Government retaliation against news outlets based on the content of their reporting should concern all who value free speech and an independent media.
We strongly urge the White House to restore the Wall Street Journal to its previous position in the pool and aboard Air Force One for the President’s upcoming trip to Scotland. The WHCA stands ready to work with the administration to find a quick resolution.
Jiang said the administration had yet to clarify whether the ban was temporary, or if it was permanently barring Wall Street Journal reporters from the press pool.
Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement to CNN:
It’s unconstitutional — not to mention thin-skinned and vindictive — for a president to rescind access to punish a news outlet for publishing a story he tried to kill.
But hopefully the Journal reporters who were planning to join Trump for his golf trip are relieved that they can spend their newfound free time investigating more important stories, from Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein to his unprecedented efforts to bully the press.
It marks the second time the Trump administration has punitively barred a publication from the press pool in this way. Earlier this year the White House banned the Associated Press from the Oval Office, Air Force One and other exclusive access after the outlet declined to use Trump’s new moniker for the Gulf of Mexico. A decision for the administration to control the press pool came shortly after.
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