The White House on Wednesday faced swift backlash after it announced its suspension of CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s press credentials following an extended verbal confrontation between Acosta and President Trump earlier that afternoon.
{mosads}In a statement Wednesday night, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed Acosta “[placed] his hands on” a young female White House intern who attempted to take a microphone from him.
“We will … never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern. This conduct is absolutely unacceptable,” said Sanders. “As a result of today’s incident, the White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice.”
Acosta also took to Twitter to call Sanders’s assertion that he put his hands on the intern, “a lie.”
Twitter users, including many journalists, were quick to challenge Sanders’s claim that Acosta had touched the intern, slamming the White House’s decision to yank the reporter’s press credentials.
This is video of the White House intern attempting to wrench the mic away from @Acosta. He is not “placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job,” as @PressSec claimed. Suspending his pass over this is a blatant abuse of presidential power. pic.twitter.com/zSmIQF0xKv
CNN said in a statement that Acosta “has our full support” and backed up Acosta’s statement that Sanders “lied” in her “fraudulent” explanation by citing an incident “that never happened.”