Sarah Sanders hides from scandals with only 1 press briefing in 79 days

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has only held one press briefing in 2019, even as continued revelations about criminal and unethical by Trump and his inner circle have emerged.

The last White House briefing was Jan. 28. There were no briefings in the entire month of February, and there have been none in March.

The lack of briefings appears to be a deliberate strategy to evade uncomfortable questions. Trump whined in January that briefings would be curtailed because the press covers Sanders “so rudely & inaccurately” so he told her “not to bother” with the events.

Even when Sanders has held briefings, they are extremely short and with limited questions. She has used them to berate the press and to further Trump’s conspiracy theories about the ongoing criminal investigations of him and his campaign.

In lieu of the briefings, Sanders has preferred to appear for softball interviews on Fox News, where she is able to amplify the administration’s lies and propaganda in an overly friendly venue.

Without the briefings, reporters have only had one opportunity to ask the administration to address several major issues that have surfaced in the last 80 days.

These include:

• Congressional testimony from Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer revealing details of Trump’s actions to violate federal law, his racism, and overall ignorant and unethical behavior;
• Trump’s decision to stonewall congressional investigations into his violations of national security and ethical guidelines, including possible criminal acts;
• Anger from Americans after their tax refunds shrunk thanks to the GOP tax scam.
• Trump and Republicans presiding over an increase in the national debt after promising for years to lower it;
• Trump’s humiliating failure on the world stage as he was fooled once again by North Korea;
• A new election being ordered in North Carolina after the Republican candidate he supported got caught in an election fraud scandal;
• Trump’s Homeland Security secretary justifying children being put in cages.
• Trump’s invocation of a phony “national emergency” of constitutionally dubious validity to build his racist border wall;
• Trump’s hypocrisy in commenting on anti-Semitism while he has offered praise of Nazis;

And much, much more.

For all the chatter that Trump is “media savvy,” he has mostly avoided real journalists. He derides them as “fake news” for accurately reporting on him while regularly sitting down with his personal Fox News fanboy, Sean Hannity, for fawning love fests.

Trump and his team fear accountability, and they are doing their best to avoid even moderately toned questions that challenge their lies and distortions.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.