Health and Human Service Secretary Tom Price showed little concern on Wednesday for the decision by law enforcement to arrest a reporter who had tried to ask the former congressman a question Tuesday.
The authorities were “doing what they thought was appropriate,” Price said at a New Hampshire event, according to Stat News, though he added that the call to arrest the reporter was “not my decision to make.”
Noting that the reporter, Daniel Heyman, was approaching him while he was walking through a hallway, Price said, “That gentleman was not in a press conference.”
Heyman, who works for the Public News Service, was yelling questions at Price and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway Tuesday while they were at the West Virginia Capitol, according to the police complaint, which charged him with willful disruption of governmental processes. Heyman was asking about whether the GOP health care bill would allow being a victim of domestic violence to be considered a pre-existing condition, the Associated Press reported
The complaint alleged that he was “aggressively breaching” Secret Service agents on hand as protection for the Trump administration officials, and that they were “forced to remove him a couple of times from the area,” according to the Washington Post.
Heyman, at a press conference Tuesday, defended his actions and said that “they decided I was just too persistent in asking this question and trying to do my job and so they arrested me,” according to the AP.
He was released on $5,000 bond, according to Stat News.
