SF Chron: The White House is still lying about banning our reporter

Or, they told me that if I voted for McCain, we would get an arrogant administration that would mistreat the press, lie, and then double down on the lie to control the narrative…and they were right!

In a pants-on-fire moment, the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats to remove Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool covering the President in the Bay Area.

Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the press office on its fib:

Sadly, we expected the White House to respond in this manner based on our experiences yesterday. It is not a truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people in the White House communications office who told us they would remove our reporter, then threatened retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we reported on the ban, and then recanted to say our reporter might not be removed after all.

The Chronicle’s report is accurate.

The post concludes: “Messy ball now firmly in White House court.” Indeed it is.