When Did Sean Spicer Know the White House Would Bar News Outlets From Press Briefing? (VIDEO)

Because ‘When?’ Also Leads to ‘Why?’

We know that following Donald Trump’s most recent attack on the free press today at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Convention, the White House blocked The New York Times, CNN, The L.A. Times, POLITICO and Buzzfeed News from today’s press briefing.

We know that the far-right website Breitbart was included in the briefing, along with journalists from ABC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Fox News.

We also know that Jeff Mason, President of the White House Correspondents’ Association, has spoken out on the matter. “The W.H.C.A. board is protesting strongly against how today’s gaggle is being handled by the White House,” he said. “We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not. The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.”

Those discussions will likely include Sean Spicer, whose relationship with the press corps’ has been well-spoofed and of which we have a clear record. But when did Sean Spicer know that the White House would be excluding top outlets from today’s briefing? That, we don’t know.

In reviewing the record, however, it’s worth noting that Spicer ended his time with the press corps on February 8th with “Thanks a lot, guys. Have a great one. Take care.” On the 9th, a brief, “Thank you, guys.”

February 14th was a more festive, “Thank you, guys. See you tomorrow. Happy Valentine’s Day,” and the 22nd, “Thank you, guys, very much. We’ll see you tomorrow. Take care.” As it’s a daily press briefing, there’s plenty of talk about “tomorrow.” But not yesterday.

Following yesterday’s tumultuous Q&A concerning the Trump Administration’s decision to rescind its guidance on transgender youth, Sean Spicer closed out the briefing with a call to watch Trump’s speech at CPAC today. (Where, again, his attack on the free press continued.)

But just before that, as seen in the video below, he thanked the press corps for their time and wished them well. Then he let them know that they would “touch base tomorrow in some way.”

In some way.

POLITICO reports that during Friday’s meeting with selected news outlets, Spicer defended the move.

“The president spoke today. As you know, we don’t generally do, we haven’t done briefings when the president’s had a major event or an event with a world leader,” Spicer said.

That’s not exactly accurate. For example, President Trump delivered a speech on February 8 at the Police Chiefs and Sheriffs Conference, yet there was a press briefing that day.

While the video doesn’t prove that Sean Spicer knew yesterday that the outlets would be excluded from today’s briefing, it certainly begs the question. And given that Spicer himself has compared excluding the press to a dictatorship, it opens the door for a myriad of other questions.

When did he know? And why didn’t he tell the excluded outlets ahead of time? We’ll let you decide.