White House To 'Vigorously Defend' Against CNN Lawsuit - Statement

The White House will strongly defend against the CNN lawsuit over revocation of press credentials from reporter Jim Acosta who got into a heated exchange with US President Donald Trump during a press conference, spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th November, 2018) The White House will strongly defend against the CNN lawsuit over revocation of press credentials from reporter Jim Acosta who got into a heated exchange with US President Donald Trump during a press conference, spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement on Tuesday.

"We have been advised that CNN has filed a complaint challenging the suspension of Jim Acosta's hard pass," Sanders said. "This is just more grandstanding from CNN, and we will vigorously defend against this lawsuit."

Sanders added that CNN has 50 other individuals who hold press credentials, and Acosta is not "more or less special than any other media outlet or reporter with respect to the First Amendment."

Earlier on Tuesday, CNN filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration which demanded the restoration of Acosta's press credentials.

On November 7, the White House suspended Acosta's credentials after his exchange with Trump during a press conference.

Acosta aggressively questioned Trump, and when the US president tried to move on to other reporters, the CNN reporter continued to press for answers, prompting a heated argument. Eventually, a White House intern took the microphone away from Acosta. Trump called the journalist a "rude terrible person" and accused his network CNN of reporting "fake news."

Sanders later said on Twitter that Acosta had been "placing hands" on the intern who removed the microphone from his hand. Sanders also tweeted a video of the purported incident, which many observers said was edited by the conspiracy theory website InfoWars to make Acosta appear more aggressive.

However, in Tuesday's statement, Sanders changed the reasoning for taking away Acosta's credentials. This time Sanders only mentioned that Acosta refused to yield to his colleagues, but did not accuse him of putting his hands on the intern.