WH now claims reporters skipped Biden event after Post excluded

WASHINGTON — The White House claimed Tuesday that there were 20 empty press seats at President Biden’s only daytime event Monday because almost half the credentialed journalists didn’t show up — as the administration scrambled to defend itself from blowback for excluding The Post.

The stunning claim emerged as the White House press office admitted its mysterious prescreening of reporters for such events is no longer linked to COVID-19 — a sign it won’t restore long-standing norms of open-press access once the national public health emergency ends Thursday.

“There are roughly 50 seats in South Court, but depending on the event, not all of them are always available or offer an unobstructed view,” a White House official said Tuesday, referring to the auditorium in the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

“Yesterday, we credentialed 50 reporters to the event but did not have room to accommodate about two dozen others. When the event began, not all 50 reporters who were credentialed showed up,” the official claimed.

Photos showed about 20 empty seats, similar to other recent Biden speeches in the room.

It’s unclear why reporters who RSVPed would choose not to attend the Monday event, which featured Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

The president’s appearance was timed to take place just before press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s regular briefing, where almost all 49 assigned seats were taken.

If two dozen journalists indeed were denied, some may have been secondary producers for TV or radio outlets.

At least two photographers, who do not require seats, were refused, but The Post has learned of only two other reporters, both of whom work for TV outlets associated with religious groups, that were excluded.

Many journalists from prominent news outlets told The Post they didn’t even bother trying to get admitted to Biden’s Monday event because the president has rarely taken questions in recent months.

The Post is the nation’s oldest continuously published daily newspaper and has the fifth-most-read US news website — fourth when excluding aggregator MSN — but was told Monday by the White House: “We are unable to accommodate your credential request to attend the Investing in Airline Accountability Remarks on 5/8. The remarks will be live-streamed and can be viewed at WH.gov. Thank you for understanding. We will let you know if a credential becomes available.”

The exclusion came as the Justice Department prepares to make a charging decision against first son Hunter Biden for alleged crimes linked to foreign income — and as the House Oversight Committee prepares to release information Wednesday on its probe of Joe Biden’s links to the ventures.

In October 2020, The Post first reported on documents from Hunter’s abandoned laptop linking his dad to business relationships in China and Ukraine.

At the same venue in February Biden bristled at a Post reporter’s question about whether his family’s financial ties to China compromised his ability to steer US policy.

He fumed about the lack of “polite” reporters and stormed out.

The press office on Tuesday issued a memo to reporters on policy changes ahead of the end of the COVID-19 emergency — noting, for example, that daily pool reporters won’t have to be tested for the virus unless they’re flying on Air Force One.

But the memo didn’t identify any changes to the opaque prescreening process, and a supplemental note from White House Correspondents’ Association President Tamara Keith noted the press office has disassociated curation of press attendance from health concerns.

“I have confirmed with the White House that there are no remaining capacity limits at White House events based on COVID,” Keith wrote to WHCA members.

“That has been the case for several months now.”

“We have not been limiting numbers due to COVID for some time now,” a White House official reaffirmed to The Post Tuesday.

“That is not relevant.”

Jean-Pierre last year blamed the pandemic for the prescreening when pressed on a letter from 73 journalists that called the process “antithetical to the concept of a free press.”

At a briefing in July 2022, Jean-Pierre said that ending event restrictions was a “priority” as “things are starting to open up” after journalists assigned to nearly two-thirds of briefing room seats signed the protest letter.

More than 10 months after Jean-Pierre’s remarks, event restrictions remain in place for large venues that under past presidents were open to all, such as the East Room — and leaders of the Correspondents’ Association still have not been informed of the criteria for selection or told who makes the decisions.

Journalists suspect the prescreening process is a blatant attempt to shape the questions presented to the president and fear the vetting could be used by future administrations to discriminate against news outlets based on the tenor of their coverage.