White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday promoted a fake Infowars video to justify the suspension of CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s press credentials.
During a news conference that morning, President Donald Trump called Acosta a “rude, terrible person” as Acosta challenged the president’s claims about Central American refugees fleeing to the U.S.
After the heated back and forth, during which a White House intern attempted three times to grab the reporter’s microphone, Acosta’s press credentials were revoked.
Sanders tried to justify the decision by accusing Acosta on Twitter of placing “his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job.” Original video of the incident shows the woman trying to grab the microphone, as Acosta’s hand brushes her arm. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he said.
The video shared by Sanders appears to be a manipulated video of the incident, which was first shared on Twitter by the editor-at-large of the conspiracy theorist outlet, Infowars.
Here is a video of the interaction for the world to see: pic.twitter.com/us8u5TWzDz
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) November 8, 2018
The footage shared by Sanders was stripped of audio and also slowed down, and repeated. Huffington Post journalist Ashley Feinberg tweeted that the video was taken from Infowars Editor-at-Large Paul Joseph Watson’s account.
Infowars and host Alex Jones were banned from various social media websites earlier this year for abusive behavior.
This is not the first time doctored video has been used against dissenting voices under the Trump administration. Last fall, federal prosecutors relied on manipulated video footage from the far-right group Project Veritas in a trial against more than 200 people who participated in the Disrupt J20 protest of Trump’s inauguration.