CNN
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A member of Russia’s state-owned news agency gained access to the Oval Office on Friday to cover President Trump’s sit-down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – even as the AP and Reuters were barred from the high-level meeting. The White House said the journalist was not authorized to be in the press pool.
A correspondent for TASS, a Russian state media organization, was among a group of hand-picked pool reporters present in the Oval Office for the leaders’ meeting, which is part of the US’ efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The testy Trump-Zelensky sit-down may yield a signed deal that would exchange US access to Ukraine’s mineral resources for security guarantees.
Though the group of pool reporters in the Oval Office was hand picked, the White House has denied the TASS staffer was permitted entry.
“TASS was not on the approved list of media for today’s pool,” a White House official told CNN in a statement. “As soon as it came to the attention of press office staff that he was in the Oval, he was escorted out by the Press Secretary.”
“He is not on the approved list for the press conference,” the official said.
The apparent gaffe comes three days after the White House announced it would wrest the choice of pool reporters from the White House Correspondents’ Association, breaking with decades of precedent. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, promoted the move as democratic on Tuesday, emphasizing that the WHCA “should no longer have a monopoly over the privilege of press access at the White House.”
Despite assurances from the White House that the TASS correspondent had not been approved, the staffer’s presence in the Oval Office highlights a significant breach of protocol from the White House. As the White House takes control of the pool roster, the TASS staffer’s presence represents a potential security lapse on the White House’s part.
Though a member of Russia’s state-owned news agency was allowed access to the Oval Office — albeit allegedly accidentally — pool staffers emphasized that the Associated Press and Reuters were not permitted to sit in on the talks.
Reuters was most recently barred from covering Trump’s first cabinet meeting on Wednesday. And the AP, one of the world’s largest news outlets, was banned from the Oval Office and Air Force One indefinitely two weeks ago over the wire service’s refusal to refer to the “Gulf of Mexico” as the “Gulf of America.” The AP has since sued three Trump administration officials over the ban, though a federal judge on Wednesday did not direct the White House to immediately restore the wire service’s access.
The incident is not the first time the Trump administration has been involved in a controversy with Russia’s state-owned news agency. In 2017, the first Trump administration came under fire when Alexandr Scherbak, a TASS photographer, was invited to cover a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. During that sit-down, the Trump administration opted to bar all US reporters from photographing the meeting, allowing access only to White House photographers and Scherbak.