Brian Karem's statement to the White House on the Gorka incident at odds with what we all saw on the video

Greg P. | 3:32 PM on August 14, 2019

Playboy White House correspondent and CNN political analyst Brian Karem made public his statement to the White House describing his interaction with Sebastian Gorka at the social media summit last month that led to the suspension of his “hard pass”:

.@BrianKarem responds to Trump admin: "It's essential that I hold on to my hard pass"

A lawyer for Karem, the @Playboy White House correspondent and @CNN political analyst, made public on Tuesday evening the statement Karem submitted to the White House. https://t.co/mBXQVKZmqZ

— Ted Boutrous (@BoutrousTed) August 14, 2019

For those that don’t know, Karem was not barred from covering the president in the White House. He simply lost the ability to bypass security and will now have to wait in line with other journalists to go through security:

Those without a hard pass must request a “day pass” beforehand, and then show a Secret Service agent a photo ID and press pass, as well as confirm their Social Security number. On days where there is a briefing or major event, the day pass line is clogged with confused newcomers, student journalists, and members of the foreign press.

Anyway, in his statement to the White House, Karem assumes you haven’t seen the video of him challenging Gorka because this just isn’t how things went down:

“I understand that Ms. Grisham says she has taken this action against my hard pass because I insulted White House guests and escalated the situation,” Karem wrote. “The escalation ran the other direction, as did the insults. The crowd was heckling the journalists, and singled me out because of my parting question to President Trump. Then Gorka singled me out, and interpreted my friendly attempt to defuse the situation as a threat. At no point in time was I ever of the mindset I was going to fight anyone.”