#WHCInsider

Behind the scenes of one of the most powerful clubs in America.

Comey Memo: Trump Asked FBI Director to “Lock Up” Reporters

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Photo courtesy Rich Girard via Flickr.

Late Tuesday, the New York Times reported a bombshell that former FBI Director James Comey had authored at least one memo documenting one-on-one discussions he had with President Donald Trump. Most devastating in the reported memo is that the president asked Comey to halt FBI investigations into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

However, other dark hints at the president’s war with the press were also reported in Comey’s memo, including Trump asking the head of the FBI to “consider putting reporters in prison.”

According to the memo, Comey met privately with President Trump following a meeting in the White House with other administration officials such as Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The president began the discussion with Comey by condemning “leaks” to the media, and asked the head of the FBI to consider putting journalists in prison for publishing classified information.

No American journalist has been prosecuted for publishing government secrets. But President Trump notably said in April that “it’s OK with me” if the Justice Department brought charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

During a House Intelligence Committee hearing in March this year, Comey testified on the topic of jailing journalists.

“That’s a harder question, as to whether a reporter incurs criminal liability by disclosing classified information,” he replied to an inquiry whether there was a law protecting journalists from prosecution.

Comey authored the memo immediately after meeting with the president as a paper trail documenting his perceived improper efforts by the president to influence an ongoing investigation.

Courts routinely consider FBI agents’ notes as credible evidence regarding the contents of conversations.

The White House has so far been silent on the reports regarding the contents of former director Comey’s memo. White House press secretary Sean Spicer did not take questions from journalists travelling on Air Force One Wednesday morning. President Trump also did not speak with reporters aboard the aircraft. Trump’s twitter feed was also uncharacteristically silent Wednesday morning.

Trump Contradicts White House Press Team, Threatens to End All White House Press Briefings, Hints Recordings May Exist

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Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

In a week dominated by the news of President Trump firing former FBI director James Comey late Tuesday, the narrative from the White House and its supporters has been inconsistent and unclear, ranging from contradictory and misleading to adversarial.

Since Comey’s dismissal, the explanation and reasoning from White House press staff has been constantly evolving. Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during Wednesday’s press briefing that the president fired the former FBI director after receiving such recommendation from the Department of Justice. This argument has also been aggressively stated by others in the White House, including Vice President Mike Pence and special advisor Kellyanne Conway.

President Trump contradicted his press team Thursday night during an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt.

“I was going to fire Comey – my decision,” Trump said. “There is no good time to it, by the way. I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.”

Facing backlash on Thursday, Sanders stated she had answered questions based on facts as she had understood it at the time.

“I didn’t ask that question directly, ‘had you already made that decision.’ I went off of the information that I had when I answered your question,” Sanders stated during Thursday’s press briefing.

In response to the confusion and contradictory statements coming from White House staff and supporters, President Trump has suggested he may end all press briefings.

In addition, the president hinted that there possibly could be recordings of conversations he held with Comey in the White House.

The White House press office has not yet commented on the existence of recordings between the two individuals.

Trump Bans U.S. Media at White House Meeting with Russian Officials

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Photo courtesy Pixabay.

President Trump met with Russian foreign officials in the Oval Office on Wednesday. The event was listed on the official schedule as “closed press,” meaning no journalists would be allowed in the room.

Soon after the meeting began, several photographs of the president, Russian foreign minister Sergey V. Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak, emerged via TASS, Russia’s official news agency. The Russian foreign ministry also posted photos of the meeting on Twitter.

“We were not informed by the Russians that their official photographer was dual-hatted and would be releasing the photographs on the state news agency,” a White House official told the Washington Post.

U.S. media struggled with how to use the Russian-sponsored photographs and coverage of the event. Fox News chose not to air them, with anchor Jenna Lee stating on-air that “we are choosing not to show them because as part of the press here in the United States, we think it’s important that the press have access to official photos from the White House.”

The meeting itself was held at the request of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “[Trump] chose to receive him because Putin asked him to,” an anonymous White House source told POLITICO. “Putin did specifically ask on the call when they last talked.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association criticized President Obama in 2013 for holding closed press meetings only covered by official government photographers, stating the practice amounted to creating “the White House’s own Soviet-style news service.”

Valerie Jarrett Announces Launch of the Galvanize Program

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Valerie Jarrett shows her support for SAP NS2 Serves, a veteran’s education and training program. Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

Following the first-ever United State of Women Summit sponsored by President Obama’s White House Council on Women and Girls, former senior presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett announced the launch of the Galvanize Program to bring conversations to communities across the country.

“[T]oday The United State of Women is launching the Galvanize Program to build on the momentum of the Summit and bring the conversation to communities across the country,” Jarrett said in a statement. “Galvanize will host mini-United State of Women Summits in six cities over the next year, bringing people together to discuss the challenges that women face and empower participants to become the next generation of local and national leaders. These summits will provide women with the tools and training they need to organize, to advocate for policy solutions, to run for office or to become an entrepreneur.”

The Galvanize Program will start with seminars in Chicago, Columbus and Atlanta, and will include workshops on critical local and national issues, skills training and an engagement fair. Attendees choose their track based on interests to receive in-depth and skills-based training developed by partner organizations.

With the launch of the Galvanize Program, Jarrett and the United State of Women are pledging to work across America to support women, defend progress and make lasting change toward gender equality.

Commentator George Will Joins MSNBC

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George Will speaking at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo courtesy Gage Skidmore.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post conservative columnist George Will has joined both MSNBC and NBC News.

Will was a contributor at Fox News since 2013, with his contract expiring in January as Fox decided not to renew.  Prior to his time at Fox News, Will worked on-air for three decades at ABC.  He is also a columnist at the Washington Post.

Will’s addition at MSNBC joins several other prominent conservative-leaning journalists at the network often criticized for holding a liberal slant.  Recent additions to MSNBC and NBC News include Megyn Kelly and Greta Van Susteren, both also formerly at Fox News, and also Nicolle Wallace, former spokeswoman for President George W. Bush.

George Will also made news on his own during the summer of 2016, when he announced he was dropping his registration in the Republican Party after then-candidate Donald Trump made statements about the heritage of a San Diego-based federal judge.

New York Times Washington Culture Reporter Katie Rogers on the White House Correspondents Weekend

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Veep’s Matt Walsh and 10thAvenueTea co-founder (and actress) Morgan Walsh . Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

The 2017 White House Correspondents’ Dinner was the pinnacle of a weekend full of events celebrating and honoring the First Amendment and freedom of the press. Actors, celebrities, journalists, comedians, and countless others all joined together for parties, charity events and political activism throughout the past few days. Washington culture reporter Katie Rogers captured the essence of several of these events in a feature story in the New York Times:

On Saturday, the will to give a party held strong, even as the president prepared to gleefully assail the news media from a farm expo center in Pennsylvania. A long-running brunch, organized by the media consultant Tammy Haddad and held at a private home, drew a crowd of prominent political journalists, including Greta Van Susteren of MSNBC and Bret Baier, the Fox News anchor; politicians; and a handful of military veterans.

Unlike past White House Correspondents’ Dinner weekends, this year the President and White House staff were not in attendance, and have often taken a hostile tone toward the mainstream media. President Trump and his campaign hosted a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Saturday. Administration employees had also announced they would not attend the dinner in “solidarity” with the president.

The effect of the administration skipping the weekend entirely was not lost on participants.

“364 days of the year they’re competing with each other,” [Tammy] Haddad said of the news media. “I think journalists and influentials are looking at each other with a deep appreciation we’ve never bothered with before.”

Russian State-Owned Sputnik Denied Congressional Press Credentials

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Photo courtesy of Pixabay / Geralt.

For the second time in a month, online news outlets have been rejected in attempts to obtain press credentials in the U.S. Congress.

The Russian state-owned news website Sputnik has been denied a permanent congressional press pass, based off a decision by the Congressional Periodical Press Gallery committee.

Gallery rules state that members cannot “act as an agent for, or be employed by the Federal, or any State, local or foreign government or representatives thereof.”  Senate Periodical Press Gallery Director Justin Wilson stated that no member of the gallery is a state-sponsored news outlet.

Andrew Feinberg, the Washington correspondent for Sputnik and former staff member for The Hill, declined official comment on the committee decision.  He posted on his personal Facebook page that the decision “is the most absurd thing I’ve ever encountered in a decade of work as a Washington-based journalist.”

Launched in 2014, Sputnik was founded with the mission of promoting “alternative interpretations that are, undoubtedly, in demand around the world,” according to the website head, Dimitry Kiselyov.  The site was formed by combining wire services Voice of Russia and RIA Novosti.

Also on Friday, the website LifeZette, founded by Laura Ingraham, was approved for a press pass.

WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS WEEKEND ANNUAL GARDEN BRUNCH

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Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

For those who missed the action this weekend, please take a look and get involved in one of the three important organizations.

Democracy Fund is a bipartisan nonprofit that invests in organizations working to ensure our political system delivers on its promise to the American people. Founded
by eBay creator Pierre Omidyar, Democracy Fund has already invested more than $50 million and is now stepping up in a big way to support a robust, free press. Democracy Fund and its partners at First Look Media announced $12 million in grants to support press freedom.

Find a way to participate:
http://www.democracyfund.org/

NS2 Serves is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization run by Mark Testoni, the President of SAP National Security Services, Inc. SAP NS2® to give back
to the community SAP serves by training and employing veterans in high-tech careers. As its signature initiative, NS2 Serves offers training and employment assistance to recent veterans of U.S. national security missions. The course is open to post-9/11 U.S. military service veterans and reservists (including disabled veterans) and Gold Star spouses. Full-time, paid participants are trained in world-class software solutions that support U.S. national security, leading to official SAP certifications, which are valuable in many career paths in the U.S. and worldwide.

Please pass this information onto veterans.
http://www.ns2serves.org/about/

Dog Tag Inc. Our friend Connie Milstein created Dog Tag Bakery to provide opportunities for veterans with disabilities, spouses, and caregivers by offering an education
through Georgetown University’s School of Continuing studies and experiential learning in our small business venture at Dog Tag Bakery in Georgetown at 3206 Grace Street NW. Please visit! Upon completion of the Dog Tag Inc. (DTI) program, transitioning veterans are business ready, competitive, and employable. Come and join us for tasty treats, or purchase a dog tag to honor the service of a family member or friend.

To donate, use this link:
http://www.dogtaginc.org/make-a-donation/

But, now we are hoping you will open your wallets, engage your business partners or reach out to your friends at educational institutions to spread the word.

The White House Correspondents weekend is an important weekend but you can make the good feeling last by participating.

You can watch highlights from the 2017 Garden Brunch here:

Thanks again to Connie Milstein who opened her home to us.

President George Washington appears at White House Correspondents’ Annual Garden Brunch

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Ian Kahn, who plays President George Washington, gave an impassioned speech celebrating a free press and the First Amendment at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Garden Brunch. Kahn presented Sergeant Major Sedrick Banks (Ret.), with a Visionary Award for his successes after recovering from severe combat injuries to owning his own small business. Banks was one of the first alums of veteran leadership initiative Dog Tag Bakery.

Kahn also said of the White House press corps and journalists who speak truth to power, “You are the front, you are fighting for liberty and for our freedoms. I think every day, ‘What would George Washington do?’ I think he would thank you. He would ask you to fight for your country.”

Kahn also appears in this season’s Billions series on Showtime.

For more photos from the 2017 #gardenbrunch click here.

White House Correspondent April Ryan Says First Amendment “Under Attack” at the White House Correspondents Garden Brunch

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One of the most experienced White House Correspondents attending this year’s White House Correspondents Garden Brunch, April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks, discussed the importance of the First Amendment in a climate where leaders are deriding the press.

She wrote on the Microsoft Wall and tells us the importance of the First Amendment in a climate where leaders are deriding the press.

“When you attack the press you’re attacking information going to the people. It’s not about us, it’s about the people that get the information.”