If you watched the press briefing late last year that everyone talked about where Donald Trump attacked not just April Ryan, but also Jim Acosta — in an exchange that resulted in the revocation of Acosta’s White House press credentials — you know that something just seemed off about the whole affair.
Now we have confirmation that the Trump administration actually planned the whole thing, and was using it as cover to smuggle in a new Attorney General who was friendlier to the President.
If it looked a little convenient that the intern was so ready to come try to snatch away the microphone from the seasoned CNN reporter, it could be because she was on the edge of her seat, waiting for a sign for her to set their plan in motion.
It was already strange that Trump went to CNN and NBC first in the presser — he knew one of them would set him off. But when he started trying to shut down Acosta, he gave a signal to his aide, who came in for the grab. In the footage, you can see her give up at first, and crouch down out of the eye line of the cameras, where you can see her turn her head and smile at someone.
But looking back, it wasn’t until we saw this that we knew something was up:
Andrea Mitchell reports that trump’s WH Briefing confrontation with ace reporter Jim Acosta was planned by trump a distraction from the news of the day; “Dems flip the House”. Quoting trump aides who laughed with each other, prior to the briefing, “This is going to be fun.”
— Michael Grossman (@Michael36776349) November 8, 2018
“This is going to be fun.” Um, WHAT is going to be fun?
And to be honest, I might even have been suspicious that this was a bit of a stretch — after all, it’s not like the White House could predict that the physical exchange that led to their revocation of Acosta’s “hard pass” for briefings would result in something they could so effectively lie about.
Then I saw the pictures of Sarah Sanders, Jared Kushner, and assorted White House staff smiling in anticipation while Trump was facing down his CNN nemesis:
Jared Kushner & @PressSec seem to be watching the continuous Trump / Acosta encounter in gleeful anticipation. Tell me this Stunt wasn’t planned.
H/T @RiotWomenn pic.twitter.com/SxEJEv5pOF
— Free bird (@TearsInHeaven09) November 8, 2018
This whole thing was a stunt designed to distract from the fact that Trump had just fired his Attorney General and installed one who was likely to spoil the Mueller investigation — a development that was happening, not coincidentally, right around the time of this press briefing.
Now we can see that it worked, and his new AG is doing exactly what Trump had hoped for.
Featured image via screen capture