1. ‘We’d love to help’
Chief of staff Reince Priebus asked the FBI to knock down a story about contacts between the Donald Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. “We’d love to help but we can’t get into the position of making statements on every story,” he was told.
Summary
“The White House appears to have violated accepted protocols and procedures” to ensure the integrity of investigations, said former FBI special agent Ali Soufan. “...there shouldn’t be any appearance of political interference over a pending investigation.”
White House: they started it
Number one, the deputy director comes to us, we didn’t go to them … The deputy director came to the chief of staff of the White House and literally said ‘the story is false.’
– Press secretary Sean Spicer
2. ‘Give me a break’
The president addressed the Conservative Political Action Committee conference (CPAC), saying “We’re Americans and the future belongs to us” and bashing the “dishonest media”.
We're on it
The fake news doesn’t tell the truth. It doesn’t represent the people. It will never represent the people and we’re going to do something about it.
– Donald Trump
3. Obama in NYC
Obama just left a meeting off 5th Ave. Hundred outside cheering. pic.twitter.com/6oPC3yCEEX
— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) February 24, 2017
4. White House bars reporters
In a highly unusual move, press secretary Sean Spicer barred reporters with the Guardian, CNN, the New York Times, Politico and others from attending a briefing in his office. Breitbart was let in. The AP boycotted the briefing in solidarity.
Limited time only
The idea was with time being what it is today we wanted to just make sure you guys got an update … And we want to make sure we answer your questions, but we don’t need to do everything on camera every day.
– Sean Spicer
'Democracy v a dictatorship'
FLASHBACK: @seanspicer in Dec. says Trump WH won't ban specific media outlets. "That's what makes a democracy a democracy vs a dictatorship" pic.twitter.com/qYd6xE4IwN
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) February 24, 2017
...and another thing:
The very purpose of the media is to be adversarial. Only a celebrity would think journalists were supposed to kiss their ass.
— Dave Schilling (@dave_schilling) February 24, 2017
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...and another thing:
Crowd at CPAC waving these little pro-Trump flags that look exactly like the Russian flag. Staffers quickly come around to confiscate them. pic.twitter.com/YhPpkwFCNc
— Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) February 24, 2017
