White House reviews handing of folder to Donald Trump by photographer from pro-Falun Gong newspaper Epoch Times
Photographer Samira Bouaou gave the folder to the US president as he left the East Room after speaking at a reception for the Congressional Medal of Honour Society
The White House has reviewed an incident last week in which a news photographer for The Epoch Times, a publication banned in China for its critical coverage, stepped into a restricted area and handed US President Donald Trump a folder during an official event.
The photographer, identified by other photojournalists as Samira Bouaou, passed the purple-coloured folder to Trump as he was walking out of the East Room on September 12 after delivering remarks at a reception for the Congressional Medal of Honour Society.
Bouaou was lined up with other photographers in an area reserved for journalists when she entered a restricted pathway where the president was walking, according to several news photographers who witnessed the incident.
Trump accepted the folder and appeared to open it briefly as he departed, before quickly shutting it, the witnesses said. It was not clear what was inside the folder. Photographers who asked Bouaou afterward why she did it and what the folder contained said she declined to provide details.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who discussed the incident with members of the White House Correspondents’ Association executive board, declined to answer questions about the matter.