The White House is “furious” with the Russian government for releasing photos of an Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump and senior Russian officials to the country’s state run media, according to CNN reporter Jim Acosta.
WH furious over Russian government photos of Trump meeting with Lavrov/Kislyak. “They tricked us,” an official said of Russians “They lie.”
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) May 11, 2017
The fracas began after the White House only allowed an official U.S. government photographer and official Russian government photographer into the meeting between Trump, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. The U.S. press corps was not allowed into the meeting.
The Russian government then distributed these photos to their state run media organization, which were picked up by the international photo wires.
Photos of Trump’s meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak just hit the Getty wire and they’re all credited to Russian news agency TASS pic.twitter.com/qE9lWB6KuS
— Matt Novak (@paleofuture) May 10, 2017
The distribution prompted fury from members of the U.S. press for their perceived shutout of the meeting, and their reliance on Russian state run media to get a look into the meeting. The move left the U.S. press reliant only on the Russian government distributed photos for a meeting between their President and foreign officials.
Photo credit from White House meeting on A1 of NYT: ‘Russian Foreign Ministry’ pic.twitter.com/evgYviVJjZ
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) May 11, 2017
The White House was caught off guard by the distribution and was not aware the photos would be distributed to TASS. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also added several of the photos to their Flickr account.
The White House has not yet released its own photos from the meeting.
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