An African journalist who has repeatedly jousted with the Biden White House about being ignored at press briefings slammed the administration’s key spokeswoman on Saturday for racially discriminating against him — even though she, like him, is black.
On X (formerly Twitter) Simon Ateba, chief White House correspondent for Today News Africa, boasted that one of his newest followers on the platform was Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Sanders once served as press secretary for former President Donald Trump. She was elected governor of Arkansas last year and is the daughter of former GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee.
In his post on X, Ateba noted that Sanders “actually answered questions in clear sentences.”
Read: Rep. Matt Gaetz Of Florida Slams New Defense Spending Bill, Says It Guts Key Conservative Reforms
“Life’s funny: One black press secretary racially discriminates against me while one white press secretary says Simon is important and I must follow him to hear what he has to say,” Ateba added in referring to current White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, who is black.
“You now understand why I love all people, Black, White, Asian or Brown people. May God help us see that racism is a scam!” Ateba posted.
Ateba, who has 568,000 followers on X, is popular with many conservative figures, followed by GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Paul Gosar of Arizona, as well as commentators such as Dan Bongino, former Trump aide Stephen Miller and Fox News’ Bret Baier.
As the Tampa Free Press reported in May, Biden’s press team issued new rules asserting the right to expel reporters who do not act in a “professional” manner. No mainstream liberal media outlets objected, even though they routinely complained about how Trump treated reporters.
The rules said reporters must list an address in the Washington, D.C., area and hold additional credentials for the Supreme Court or Congress.
Ateba said at the time that he believed the rules targeted him specifically because of his sparring with Jean-Pierre.
In one renowned instance, Ateba claimed Jean-Pierre was making a “mockery of the First Amendment” by coming into the White House briefing room with the cast of the Apple TV comedy “Ted Lasso.”
Read: Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders Set To Endorse Trump
The New York Post reported in August that Ateba sued Jean-Pierre and the Secret Service to regain his press credentials after they were not renewed by the White House.
In the lawsuit, Ateba said he did not apply for a badge renewal by a July 31 deadline because of the new rules imposed by Jean-Pierre and the White House.
The Post noted that was the “first time in U.S. history [the White House] laid out a process by which journalists could lose their credentials to close a longstanding legal loophole that prevented authorities from yanking badges.”
“Federal courts ruled twice during the Trump administration that the White House had no legal right to suspend or revoke the hard passes of journalists because there was no established mechanism to do so, meaning they lacked due process,” the Post reported.
In the lawsuit, Harmeet Dhillon, a prominent conservative lawyer who represented Ateba, argued that Jean-Pierre and the Secret Service violated her client’s First and Fifth Amendment rights in “an unconstitutional attempt to arbitrarily restrict who qualifies as ‘the press.’”
“Defendants did so by adopting credentialing criteria specifically designed to exclude Mr. Ateba from eligibility. Such discrimination amounts to a content-based regulation and viewpoint discrimination against Mr. Ateba in violation of the First Amendment,” the lawsuit stated.
Android Users, Click To Download The Free Press App And Never Miss A Story. Follow Us On Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our free newsletter.
We can’t do this without your help. Visit our GiveSendGo page and donate any dollar amount; every penny helps.