WaPo reporter blasts White House, saying they lied about Naomi Biden’s wedding

While it took new leadership at Twitter for President Joe Biden’s administration to get a routine dosage of fact-checking, sycophantic corporate media lagged in that department until the supposed lies directly impacted them and became “too cute by half.”

Saturday at the White House, Biden celebrated the wedding of his 28-year-old granddaughter Naomi to 25-year-old Peter Neal in an event that had been closed to the press. As had previously been reported, White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre explained, “They want it to be private, and we’re going to respect their wishes. We’re going to provide a photo and a statement from the president and first lady after the wedding.”

Though dejected at not being included in the elite gathering, media seemed to accept the condition until Tuesday when Vogue magazine published their exclusive spread with images of the bride, her groom, and grandmother that had evidently been taken during a shoot days ahead of the nuptials.

Reacting to the story, The Washington Post’s Ashley Parker slammed the White House for lying and wrote, “I spent four years covering the Trump WH and two years covering the Biden WH. What’s fascinating is that they both lie, albeit in [very] different ways. Trump team was shameless, whereas Biden team is too cute by half.”

Perhaps realizing that she was treading in potentially cancellable territory by comparing Biden to former President Donald Trump, moments later she added, “TO BE CLEAR: Not all lies are created equal and the magnitude, frequency and audacity is certainly different. But the Biden WH, for [example], has also waived us off correct reporting about Biden’s SCOTUS pick, his Egypt trip, attendees in private meetings, etc.”

Parker’s initial statement was a reaction to a post from New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers who accused the administration of using a linguistic loophole to disguise the planned photo shoot after her desire to report on the exclusive the month prior had been squashed.

“I had reporting in Oct about Vogue being tapped to cover this and I was waved off,” Rogers wrote. “Official explanation is that Vogue wasn’t there the day of. Loophole = the family staged a ‘wedding at the WH’ shoot before hand.”

“‘Private’ per @PressSec = not for the White House press corps,” she added.

Maggie Haberman quote tweeted the statement and endeavored to provide context to paint the upset press in a less petty light, “We cover the small lies politicians tell because they can give way to bigger ones, for folks wondering why this is news. That’s what the press is supposed to do.”

Meanwhile, Roll Call’s Niels Lesniewski was far blunter as he expressed, “I think we all sort of knew this would happen, but if they wouldn’t let the pool photographers in because the rights were sold, we should have known.”

Glossing over the crafted messaging on the private wedding ceremony, assistant White House press secretary Abdullah Hasan responded to Parker’s accusations of lying by honing in specifically on her point regarding Biden’s plans as they pertained to Egypt.

“To be clear, the Washington Post reported a trip was confirmed before it was. We told you on the record that it was not confirmed. We even offered WaPo the exclusive if and when confirmed,” he wrote. “We’d never put our credibility on the line, especially not over something like scheduling.”

Kevin Haggerty

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