WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed Wednesday that “there is no restriction” on press access to President Biden’s large indoor events — despite a long-running mysterious prescreening process that’s drawn press corps protests.
The prescreening process has never been explained, even to leaders of the White House Correspondents’ Association, which has lobbied for years for a resumption of historical access norms and the end of the murky vetting, which on May 8 was used to exclude The Post from an event despite about 20 empty seats for reporters.
“The White House press office — your office — continues to prescreen reporters allowed into large indoor events that formerly, under past presidents, were open to all journalists,” a reporter for The Post told Jean-Pierre at the regular White House briefing.
“Last June, almost a year ago, 73 journalists including reporters from nearly two-thirds of the seats in this room signed a letter calling the process ‘antithetical to the concept of a free press’ and the Correspondents’ Association also has lobbied for it to be done away with.
“Last July, you said that ending the restrictions was a ‘priority’ and yet they remain. So I’m wondering if you could commit to once and for all doing away with this mysterious prescreening process.”
Jean Pierre replied, “Look, every event — as you’ve heard from my team, I think you’ve asked my team this question and they’ve responded to you multiple times about how this process work — every event is different. But no matter what the venue setup, we always credential as many reporters in the room as possible, that’s what we try to do here.”
“I know that you’ve been in many of those events,” Jean-Pierre went on.
“I know you’ve had an opportunity to ask the president a question multiple times. And so you can speak to that for yourself as well — the opportunities you’ve had to be in these events. We’ve also been able to substantially increase, as you’ve seen us do these last two years, the number of credentialed press and events on campus as COVID has eased.”
She concluded, “Look, we want to continue to make sure that you guys have access to him, the president, we think that’s incredibly important. And you’ve seen us take actions, you have, you’ve seen us take action over the past several months.”
The Post’s reporter press Jean-Pierre: “There’s often so many empty seats. Are you still committed to rolling back these restrictions and ending the prescreening process?”
“Here’s the thing, there is no restriction,” Jean-Pierre said.
“Every event is different, every event plays to the room that we’re in. We have expanded credentials over the past several months…. As COVID has waned, we’ve taken this very seriously and have taken in the comments and the requests that’s come from this room.”
The Correspondents’ Association and veteran White House reporters have expressed concern that the Biden era press restrictions on large indoor events will set a precedent used into the future to discriminate against publications based on their coverage and to shape the questions posed to the president.
White House press officers have provided journalists with an array of conflicting explanations of how the prescreening works — at points claiming a random-number generator was used and at others that the selection was based off the size of an outlet’s audience or was first-come-first-served, all of which were anecdotally debunked.
The press office said this month that it’s no longer invoking the COVID-19 pandemic to justify the screening initiative.
After backlash to excluding The Post, a spokesperson claimed there were about 20 — out of 50 — empty theater-style seats on May 8 because reporters who were issued credentials didn’t show up to the Biden remarks in the White House-adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
However, it’s unclear why nearly half of credentialed reporters would skip a presidential event after submitting a digital RSVP, especially given the convenient timing of that event just before Jean-Pierre’s daily briefing, where nearly all 49 assigned seats were filled.
On February 16, the White House press office ejected reporters from a Biden event after failing to issue timely responses to credential requests, even though there was plenty of space.
An email said, “Due to space limitations, we are unable to accommodate your credential request for POTUS remarks.”
A reporter for The Post, which was not issued a credential despite already being seated in a half-empty auditorium, pointed out to press staff that there was no space limitation and ultimately was allowed to remain.