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White House bans Founding Father's newspaper from event just days after Biden expressed support for a free press
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White House bans Founding Father's newspaper from event just days after Biden expressed support for a free press

President Joe Biden claimed at the White House Correspondents' Dinner just over a week ago, "The free press is a pillar ⁠— maybe the pillar ⁠— of a free society."

It appears that Biden prefers the presence of only those pillars that support him and his agenda.

On Monday, the White House blocked the newspaper established by Founding Father Alexander Hamilton from attending Biden's only daytime public event, where he appeared with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to discuss airline policies in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Although Biden previously contended that "journalism is not a crime," the New York Post interpreted its exile as a penalty for illuminating possible improprieties committed by the Democratic president and his kin.

The Post reported that the Biden White House's decision to bar it from covering the event was provided without a justification.
"We are unable to accommodate your credential request to attend the Investing in Airline Accountability Remarks on 5/8. The remarks will be live-streamed and can be viewed at WH.gov. Thank you for understanding. We will let you know if a credential becomes available," White House staff told the Post.

Whereas in previous efforts to exclude the New York Post, the paper — among the top most-read newspapers online — was told it had been kept out due to "space limitations," the exclusion letter this week made no such claim.

Just the News noted that there were in fact numerous empty seats in the gallery.

According to the verboten Post, the Biden White House may be attempting to keep the paper at a distance as Hunter Biden's criminal investigation is "nearing its end." It was the Post, after all, that first broke the Hunter Biden laptop story, detailing the improprieties detailed thereon.

TheBlaze recently detailed how the New York Post proved to be such a thorn in the side of the Biden campaign and the Democratic establishment that the bureaucratic state was ultimately weaponized against it.

The Post's D.C. reporter Steven Nelson took to Twitter to point out the apparent hypocrisy of the liberal media and the Democratic establishment, highlighting how when former President Donald Trump barred the New York Times and CNN from a single press briefing in 2017, the "entire press establishment melts down."

Nelson linked to a Washington Post article that characterized Trump's move in 2017 as the latest move in an "escalating war against the media," detailing how some of the liberal media personalities now silent then succumbed to fits of apoplexy.

"It’s not acceptable," said CNN anchor Jake Tapper. "In fact, it’s petulant. … This White House doesn’t seem to value a free press. There’s a word for this. The word is 'un-American.'"
Dean Baquet, editor at the New York Times, while silent this week, said of the Times' and CNN's one-time exclusion in 2017, "Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties. ... Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest."

The Times has not yet posted a similar statement concerning the Post's exclusion over the weekend.

Martin Baron, then-editor at the Washington Post, said, "This is an undemocratic path that the administration is traveling. ... There is nothing to be gained from the White House restricting the public’s access to information. We are currently evaluating what our response will be if this sort of thing happens again."

ABC News producer and former National Press Club president Jeff Ballou said the exclusion of the liberal outlets by the Trump White House was "deeply disturbing and completely unacceptable that the White House is actively running a campaign against a constitutionally enshrined free and independent press. … The action harks back to the darkest chapters of U.S. history and reeks of undemocratic, un-American, and unconstitutional censorship."

It remains to be seen if former champions of a "free and independent press" on the left will soon speak up against the Post's exclusion or against the Biden White House's apparent efforts to ensure that the purportedly free press asks questions desirable to the state.

Biden was photographed on April 26 holding a "cheat sheet" showing pre-approved questions that reporters ultimately asked at a joint press conference with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

TheBlaze reported that Biden held several notecards in his hand. One showed "press conference prep," while another provided Biden with the names, pictures, and affiliations of reporters who had been pre-selected to ask questions. The notecards even showed Biden had advance knowledge of what questions would be asked.

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Joseph MacKinnon

Joseph MacKinnon

Joseph MacKinnon is a staff writer for Blaze News. He lives in a small town with his wife and son, moonlighting as an author of science fiction.
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