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  • 2018-11-12 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Obama Have Journalist Brenda Lee Forcibly Removed from Air Force One? (en)
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  • As President Trump and his administration were criticized in November 2018 for their controversial decision to suspend CNN reporter Jim Acosta's press credentials, a number of Trump's defenders engaged in a round of whataboutism and claimed that President Obama had treated the media in a similar (or worse) fashion. The following image, for instance, was shared with the claim that it depicted a reporter named Brenda Lee being forcibly removed from Air Force One by order of President Obama due to her pro-life beliefs: Although the photograph was genuine, the accompanying caption contained multiple factual errors: This photograph was taken on 28 May 2009 at Los Angeles International Airport and captured Brenda Lee, a self-proclaimed Catholic priestess and columnist for the Georgia Informer, being removed from an area near Air Force One by airport security. NBC Los Angeles reported at the time that Lee was trying to get a letter to President Obama about gay marriage but refused to cooperate with the security detail or a White House staffer who offered to take the letter to Obama. She was eventually removed from the press area by security while President Obama was elsewhere: Lee told the Orange County Register in an interview that she believed that she was being discriminated against because she was a priestess (Father Paul Gins of her parish denied that Lee was an actual priestess) and suggested that the White House staffer who had her removed from the press area was homosexual and had her removed because he objected to the content of her letter: Lee was questioned after the incident by police and then released. Lee told the Register that she called the White House to request press credentials for Obama's arrival, but other than Lee's word we've found no confirmation that she actually had press credentials issued by the White House to begin with. We reached out to the White House Press Association and were told via email that they do not issue news credentials or grant access to secure areas such as an airport arrival of the president. Regardless, even if Lee had received press credentials for this specific event, she was not a regular White House reporter, and we found no credible news reports stating that she had permanently lost her White House press credentials. Here's a video report from the Associated Press about the incident: This is at least the second time that internet trolls have used out-of-context images to claim that President Obama mistreated the media. A video of Obama's calling for a heckling protester to be removed from a White House event was shared as if it depicted him having a reporter thrown out for asking an unfair question at a press conference. (en)
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