This post has been updated to reflect statements from Claudia Duran, a spokesperson for the El Paso District Attorney’s Office.
The BBC has asked the White House to review the security protocol for President Donald Trump’s political rallies after one of its cameramen was attacked Tuesday night.
In an article Tuesday, the BBC reported that it “has requested the White House review security for media attending President Donald Trump’s rallies after an attack on one of its cameramen.”
In a subsequent statement, the BBC’s Americas Bureau Editor Paul Danahar said that cameraman Ron Skeans “pointed out that access into the media area last night was unsupervised and that no member of law enforcement or security stopped the attacker entering, intervened when he began his attack or followed up on the incident with our colleagues afterwards.”
Danahar said he sent the security review request to White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders, though Monday night’s rally was a campaign event, not an official White House event. Sanders didn’t respond to TPM’s request for comment.
The Daily Beast separately reported Tuesday that El Paso District Attorney Jaime Esparza had said in a statement that his office isn’t planning on pressing charges against the man who attacked Skeans.
But a spokesperson for the DA’s office, Claudia Duran, told TPM in an email that the Daily Beast report was “absolutely inaccurate” and that law enforcement never presented the case to the office for review.
“The secret service escorted the individual from the coliseum and law enforcement did not present the case for review by the District Attorney’s office,” she wrote in an email.
The Daily Beast quoted Esparza as saying:
“We are looking into the situation and the released video of the incident but we are not pressing charges at this time … If there are any changes to our course of action, we will inform the public.”
Duran contradicted that: “All comments from the District Attorney come from me and I have not spoken to anyone from The Daily Beast and neither has the District Attorney,” she wrote.
Following TPM’s inquiry, the Daily Beast removed the quote attributed to the DA and replaced it with the following:
“We have not reviewed any material from law endorcement [sic] for charges at this time,” a district attorney spokesperson said on Tuesday. “No charges will be filed until we do.”
Make America Great Britain Again
No charges - WTH? It’s not like there weren’t plenty of credible witnesses, and, well, compelling video of the attack and the aftermath.
Ten to one, Trump will use this as an excuse to corral the media away from the crowds, to limit access. He’s done it before, in fact I was a little surprised to learn he didn’t have the cameramen held in cages in the back.
Now we’re getting towards brownshirt land for sure… Physically assault people, caught on camera, and the MAGA uniform lets you off clean.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the Press Secretary of President Donald Trump and has no connection with candidate-in-waiting Donald Trump.
And there’s no White House connection anyway, as the incident happened in El Paso.