The White House will remove Wall Street Journal reporters from the group of journalists covering President Trump’s trip to Scotland. The move comes in the wake of the WSJ article published last week that the leader sent a bawdy birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. Trump later denied the existence of that missive.
On Friday, the U.S. leader filed a lawsuit against the newspaper over the article detailing his message filled with sexual innuendo to the pedophile financier. The president demanded the outrageous sum of at least $10 billion in damages.
Tarini Parti, White House reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was supposed to follow the president during the last two days of the trip to Turnberry and Aberdeen, Scotland. However, the White House, which took control of pool rotations from the White House Correspondents’ Association earlier this year, removed her from the travel schedule.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt stated, “The Wall Street Journal or any other news outlet are not guaranteed special access to cover President Trump in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One, and in his private workspaces.” She explained further, “Due to the Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct, they will not be one of the thirteen outlets on board. Every news organization in the entire world wishes to cover President Trump, and the White House has taken significant steps to include as many voices as possible.”
At this time, it was not specified whether WSJ reporters will receive accreditation in the future to follow the MAGA leader on the most exclusive occasions.
CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang, who took over as the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association earlier this month, commented, “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. 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.”
This is not the first time that a press organ has had to contend with the authoritarian decisions of the Trump administration. In recent months Associated Press reporters were also denied access to the White House press pool when the news outlet had refused to change the toponym of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in its articles, failing to comply with the president’s demands.
