CABLE NEWS NETWORK, INC. et al v. TRUMP et al

Filing 3

LARGE ADDITIONAL ATTACHMENT(S) re 2 MOTION for Temporary Restraining Order filed by CABLE NEWS NETWORK, INC., ABILIO JAMES ACOSTA. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 7, # 2 Exhibit 8, # 3 Exhibit 9, # 4 Exhibit 10, # 5 Exhibit 11, # 6 Exhibit 12, # 7 Exhibit 13, # 8 Exhibit 14, # 9 Exhibit 15, # 10 Exhibit 16, # 11 Exhibit 17, # 12 Exhibit 18, # 13 Exhibit 19, # 14 Exhibit 20, # 15 Exhibit 21, # 16 Exhibit 22, # 17 Exhibit 23, # 18 Exhibit 24, # 19 Exhibit 25, # 20 Exhibit 26, # 21 Exhibit 27, # 22 Exhibit 28, # 23 Exhibit 29, # 24 Exhibit 30, # 25 Exhibit 31, # 26 Exhibit 32, # 27 Exhibit 33, # 28 Exhibit 34, # 29 Exhibit 35, # 30 Exhibit 36, # 31 Exhibit 37, # 32 Exhibit 38, # 33 Exhibit 39, # 34 Exhibit 40, # 35 Exhibit 41, # 36 Exhibit 42, # 37 Exhibit 43, # 38 Exhibit 44, # 39 Exhibit 45, # 40 Exhibit 46, # 41 Exhibit 47, # 42 Exhibit 48, # 43 Exhibit 49, # 44 Exhibit 50, # 45 Exhibit 51, # 46 Exhibit 52, # 47 Exhibit 53, # 48 Exhibit 54)(jf)

Exhibit 48

11/11/2018

Trump Administration Uses Misleading Video to Justify Barring of CNN’s Jim Acosta - The New York Times

Trump Administration Uses
Misleading Video to Justify Barring
of CNNʼs Jim Acosta
By Michael M. Grynbaum and Elizabeth Williamson
Nov. 8, 2018

The Trump administration relied on a misleadingly edited video from a contributor to the
conspiracy site Infowars to help justify removing the credentials of CNN’s chief White House
correspondent, a striking escalation in President Trump’s broadsides against the press.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, falsely accused Jim Acosta, the CNN
journalist, of “placing his hands on a young woman,” a White House intern, as Mr. Acosta asked
questions that irked the president during a formal news conference on Wednesday.
Television footage showed that Mr. Acosta and the intern made brief, benign contact — “Pardon
me, ma’am,” the correspondent said — as she tried to take a microphone away from him at Mr.
Trump’s behest.
But Ms. Sanders posted a 15-second video clip on Twitter that misleadingly suggested Mr. Acosta
had pushed the intern’s upper arm. The clip was identical to one posted earlier by Paul Joseph
Watson, an Infowars contributor, according to a forensic analysis by The New York Times.
“We will not tolerate the inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video,” Ms. Sanders
wrote.
Infowars, which has been banned by platforms like Twitter and Facebook, is known for spreading
conspiracy theories, including one pushed by its founder, Alex Jones, that the mass shooting at
the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax. Ms. Sanders — who once
encouraged Americans to view the work of James O’Keefe, a right-wing activist, “whether it’s
accurate or not” — declined to say on Thursday why she had distributed the video from her
official White House account.

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“The question is: Did the reporter make contact or not?” Ms. Sanders said in a statement. “The
video is clear, he did.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/business/media/infowars-white-house-jim-acosta-cnn.html

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11/11/2018

Trump Administration Uses Misleading Video to Justify Barring of CNN’s Jim Acosta - The New York Times

There is no evidence the video has been faked. But the editing, including zooming in and
repeating several frames, exaggerated the contact between Mr. Acosta and the intern. The low
quality of the video, which briefly freezes either deliberately or because of a glitch, adds to the
ambiguity, the analysis showed.
The removal of Mr. Acosta’s credentials, which curbs his access to the West Wing and its staff, has
little precedent in the modern White House. Past presidents have clashed with outspoken
journalists like Sam Donaldson and Helen Thomas, but did not restrict their access.
Still, the move against Mr. Acosta, a frequent antagonist known for challenging the president
during news conferences, was not entirely a surprise.
As a candidate in 2016, Mr. Trump barred journalists from Univision, The Washington Post,
BuzzFeed News and Politico from attending his rallies. As president, he has popularized the
phrases “enemy of the people” and “fake news” and threatened to pull broadcast licenses and
change libel laws to make it easier to sue.
The daily White House press briefing has slowly vanished. In July, a CNN reporter was barred
from a Rose Garden event because White House aides said she had asked questions too
aggressively.
Mr. Trump and his political team are no doubt aware that Mr. Acosta is a useful foil. “CNN sucks!”
is a common chant at the president’s rallies, and there is little political downside for the
administration to restrict access to one of the network’s star correspondents. The move is likely to
rile Mr. Trump’s opponents, buoy his supporters and have little or no effect on those occupying
the nation’s shrinking middle ground.
And, as with most things Trump, nothing was cut-and-dried.
There was the timing: Mr. Acosta’s credential was stripped hours after the president fired his
attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and had to explain away a difficult midterm election that handed
his Democratic antagonists control of the House. Political strategists observed that a controversy
over press rights, instigated by the White House, would make for a useful ploy to distract
journalists and perhaps the public.
Then there were the players: a showman president and an ambitious television correspondent in
the spotlight.
Mr. Acosta sometimes elicits eye-rolls from others in the White House press corps, who wonder if
his aggressive questions are meant less to draw out information from Mr. Trump than to create a
camera-ready spectacle. “Most of the people there were serious reporters asking serious
questions,” Chris Wallace, the “Fox News Sunday” moderator, said of Wednesday’s news
conference. “But Jim Acosta, I thought, embarrassed himself.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/business/media/infowars-white-house-jim-acosta-cnn.html

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11/11/2018

Trump Administration Uses Misleading Video to Justify Barring of CNN’s Jim Acosta - The New York Times

Dozens of other journalists disagreed with that view, offering public support. The Washington
Post’s media columnist Margaret Sullivan, for one, advised CNN to sue the White House on First
Amendment grounds.
The move against Mr. Acosta also came shortly after a pipe bomb turned up at CNN’s New York
headquarters. The suspect arrested in the case, Cesar Sayoc Jr., had been photographed at a
Trump rally holding an anti-CNN sign, and the authorities found a “CNN Sucks” sticker on his
van.
At Infowars, the imprimatur of the White House was a welcome development.
The site has lost a chunk of its audience since being banned by several major online platforms
this summer, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Apple’s App Store. Mr. Watson, who rose
to prominence on the site, has kept his social media and YouTube accounts, providing one of the
few remaining means for Mr. Jones to reach a mainstream audience.
The video tweeted by Ms. Sanders makes it appear that Mr. Acosta is making forceful, sustained
contact with the intern’s arm. The Infowars video also has no sound, so that Mr. Acosta’s “pardon
me” is not heard.
“If you look at original, higher-quality videos from other vantage points, you can more clearly see
that while there was some contact between the reporter and intern, he did not strike her as his
hand comes down,” said Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at Dartmouth College who
analyzed the clip for The Times.
The news conference was broadcast on major cable outlets, including the public affairs network
C-SPAN, meaning that she had other options than to use a clip put together by a contributor to a
notorious site.
Infowars seized on the publicity that went with Ms. Sanders’s use of the clip, posting incendiary
items under headlines like “Did Jim Acosta Assault a Woman?” Mr. Jones did not respond to a
message left on his cellphone. Mr. Watson, who is based in Britain, did not respond to requests for
comment.
In a video interview posted on Infowars on Thursday, Mr. Watson acknowledged to Mr. Jones that
the clip had what he called “digital artifact problems.”
“I ran it through like three different programs and re-uploaded it to Twitter, O.K.?” Mr. Watson
said. “That’s not doctoring. Doctoring is when you change the footage deliberately.” He added:
“The media invented a conspiracy theory to distract from Acosta’s behavior. Sarah Sanders was
perfectly correct in posting this video, which is genuine, and it proves her point that Acosta
placed his hands on the woman to overpower her.”
“You’re right, Paul, he overpowered a woman,” Mr. Jones interjected.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/business/media/infowars-white-house-jim-acosta-cnn.html

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11/11/2018

Trump Administration Uses Misleading Video to Justify Barring of CNN’s Jim Acosta - The New York Times

Mr. Acosta did no such thing. On Thursday, the White House News Photographers Association
said it was “appalled” that the White House had distributed the Infowars clip.
“As visual journalists, we know that manipulating images is manipulating truth,” the group said in
a statement. “It’s deceptive, dangerous and unethical. Knowingly sharing manipulated images is
equally problematic, particularly when the person sharing them is a representative of our
country’s highest office with vast influence over public opinion.”
Mr. Trump has made CNN into one of his marquee targets. In the summer of 2017, he used the
@realdonaldtrump and @POTUS accounts to share a 28-second video that showed Mr. Trump
himself violently wrestling to the ground an opponent with the CNN logo for a head.
“#FraudNewsNetwork,” the president added as a comment.
CNN’s president, Jeff Zucker, has recently criticized Mr. Trump in unflinching language, calling
his anti-press language a danger to journalists. On Wednesday, the network said the White
House’s retaliation against Mr. Acosta was a “threat to our democracy.”
Christoph Koettl and David Botti contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 9, 2018, on Page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: White House Uses Deceptive
Video to Justify Banning of CNN Reporter

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