Sarah Sanders Accused Of Sharing Doctored Infowars Video To Justify Acosta Ban
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was accused on Wednesday night of sharing a doctored video to defend the administration’s decision to revoke the press credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta.
Earlier in the day, President Donald Trump called Acosta a “rude, terrible person” during a press conference and tried to cut off his questioning.
When a White House intern attempted to take the microphone from Acosta three times, he held onto it and continued questioning Trump. During the intern’s final attempt, as she tried to pull the microphone away, Acosta’s hand appeared to briefly brush her arm.
“Pardon me, ma’am,” Acosta quickly said.
Here is a video of the interaction for the world to see: pic.twitter.com/us8u5TWzDz
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) November 8, 2018
However, the footage Sanders shared was missing the audio, zoomed in and repeated. Critics on social media said the speed of the footage was altered as well.
Sanders did not disclose where she obtained the video.
Several Twitter users noted that the same video was shared hours earlier by a personality from Infowars, the Alex Jones outlet banned from many social media sites for abusive behavior:
This subtle edit of the Acosta video - his arm sped up ever so slightly, to amp up the conflict - now has thousands of retweets and hundreds of thousands of views. Video, once the end-all central validator, is becoming as vulnerable to politicized distortion as everything else https://t.co/rsYkn6u8pz
— Drew Harwell (@drewharwell) November 8, 2018
Trump’s press secretary, who frequently calls accurate but critical reporting “fake,” is sharing doctored video produced by InfoWars, a lunatic conspiracy theory outlet who has falsely claimed that the Sandy Hook massacre was faked & that John Kerry shot a hurricane with a laser
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 8, 2018
Question for @PressSec: Where'd you obtain the distorted @Acosta video you posted? InfoWars personality @PrisonPlanet posted the same video two hours before you did. Surely you don't trust InfoWars...?
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 8, 2018
This video is doctored. It's slowed down and then sped up at the moment Acosta's hand comes down to make it look like he's doing a karate chop or something. This is shameful propaganda. It's Orwellian. https://t.co/in8m3iHn18
— Dana Schwartz (@DanaSchwartzzz) November 8, 2018
The government is literally falsifying evidence to wrongfully accuse a private citizen of a crime in order to revoke his rights.
— Dana Schwartz (@DanaSchwartzzz) November 8, 2018
lol, the edited video press sec tweted was lifted from InfoWars' paul joseph watson pic.twitter.com/D3Y6EoJUn7
— rat king (@MikeIsaac) November 8, 2018
Twitter must answer for why they allowed White House usage of hate-speech purveyor InfoWars doctored video about @acosta. If Twitter were consistent, amplifiers of hate would be banned. https://t.co/fYpAckmvQX
— David Beard (@dabeard) November 8, 2018
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.