A reporter for a Russian state media outlet was booted from the White House on Friday after he sneaked inside the Oval Office ahead of a high-stakes meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The reporter for TASS – one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top propaganda outlets – was not on the pre-approved pool list but somehow made his way into the Oval Office for the Trump-Zelensky showdown with journalists from Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and other outlets.
“TASS was not on the approved list of media for today’s pool,” a White House official said in a statement. “As soon as it came to the attention of press office staff that he was in the Oval, he was escorted out by the Press Secretary. He is not on the approved list for the press conference.”
The White House did not explain how the Russian interloper was able to gain access to the Oval Office.
CNBC identified the reporter as Dmitry Kirsanov, TASS’s Washington, DC, bureau chief.
Kirsanov was apparently approached by a Secret Service agent during Trump’s remarks, who motioned for him to make his way out of the room, according to the outlet.
The intruder was promptly escorted out of the West Wing.
Kirsanov, however, was in the room long enough to snap a photograph of the fiery meeting between Trump and Zelensky, which the propaganda outlet has credited to him.
TASS did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The incident comes the same week White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt upended the tradition of the White House Correspondents’ Association controlling which journalists are assigned for pool duty.
On Tuesday, Leavitt declared that the Trump administration would take charge of deciding which reporters could cover the president most closely, arguing that the move is a shift toward democratizing press access.
