White House spokeswoman tells people to watch anti-CNN video in fresh row over ‘fake news’

The White House encouraged people to watch an anti-CNN video regardless of its accuracy during a heated exchange with reporters over the administration’ use of the term “fake news”.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, when asked about tweets from Donald Trump attacking CNN for a report that the news agency later retracted, encouraged people to go watch a video that makes a CNN producer look as if he is admitting that the Russia probe doesn’t have legitimate evidence behind it.

“There’s a video circulating now, whether it’s accurate or not, I don’t know, but I would encourage everyone in this room and everyone in this country to take a look at it”, Ms Huckabee Sanders said.

In the video, posted by Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, CNN supervising producer John Bonifield says that he hadn’t seen hard evidence to claim that the President had committed any actual crime related to the probe into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.

Mr Bonifield is taped in a casual conversation, and notes that he doesn’t think that investigators have “smoking gun” that would implicate the president.

The clips are, however, edited, and it doesn’t appear that the CNN producer is aware he is being filmed at the time.

That video has been criticised since it doesn’t show the whole exchange, and it is unclear exactly what Mr Bonifield meant to convey with his statements. New York Times writer Sopan Deb questioned the video, saying that there was a “better than 90 percent chance” that they “were deceptively edited”.

Mr O’Keefe is well known for provoking conservative outrage, and has released several undercover videos. He has even gone so far as to wear costumes to get people to talk on camera.

He was sentenced to three years of probation in 2010, after he plead guilty to misdemeanour charges related to entering the offices of then Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu’s offices on false pretenses.