Officials in the Biden-Harris White House altered the official transcript of President Joe Biden’s remarks earlier this week where he ...
Officials in the Biden-Harris White House altered the official transcript of President Joe Biden’s remarks earlier this week where he referred to tens of millions of supporters of former President Donald Trump as “garbage.”
The Associated Press reported that the fraudulent alteration of official government records drew objections from the federal workers who document all of the president’s remarks for historical reference.
Official White House stenographers recorded Biden stating: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
However, Biden-Harris officials altered the quote by adding an apostrophe, changing it to “supporter’s” instead of “supporters.”
The change was made only after the White House press team “conferred with the president,” according to an email obtained by the publication.
Federal officials pushed back, noting that the interference by the White House was “a breach of protocol and spoilation of transcript integrity between the Stenography and Press Offices.”
“If there is a difference in interpretation, the Press Office may choose to withhold the transcript but cannot edit it independently,” the supervisor wrote. “Our Stenography Office transcript — released to our distro, which includes the National Archives — is now different than the version edited and released to the public by Press Office staff.”
The supervisor, who is a career White House employee, said that urgency of a transcript’s release was not their concern and that what mattered was that it was authentic and legitimate.
The edit came as the administration tried to contain the fallout from Biden’s remarks during the final days of the presidential race.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) on Wednesday accused White House staff of “releasing a false transcript” of Biden’s remarks, and said that they were considering opening an investigation into the matter.
“Unsurprising too were the White House’s actions after he said them,” they said in a joint statement. “Instead of apologizing or clarifying President Biden’s words, the White House instead sought to change them (despite them being recorded on video) by releasing a false transcript of his remarks.”
“The move is not only craven, but it also appears to be in violation of federal law, including the Presidential Records Act of 1978,” they added. “White House staff cannot rewrite the words of the President of the United States to be more politically on message. Though President Biden’s relevance continues to diminish, his words continue to matter, even as they become increasingly divisive and erratic.”
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