On Friday, the Associated Press published an article criticizing Vice President Pence's use of a private AOL email account while serving as governor of Indiana. The article, written by an Indianapolis-based AP reporter, included Mrs. Pence's personal email address and inspired Pence's chief legal counsel to fire off an angry letter to Associated Press CEO Gary Pruitt after the AP refused to remove Mrs. Pence's email address from the piece.
The Daily Caller reports that Mike Pence's press secretary asked the Associated Press to revise the article in order to remove Karen Pence's personal contact information, but they refused to do so -- twice.
Chief counsel pens angry letter to AP
Mark Paoletta, the vice president's chief counsel, then wrote a scathing letter to Pruitt.
“Your organization was unwilling to retract the story, issue a correction, or even redact the e-mail from the story,” wrote Paoletta on Saturday. "There was absolutely no reason to publish this private email address, and you should be ashamed of your reprehensible conduct," he added.
Paoletta's letter to Pruitt asserts that Mike Pence's press secretary first reached out to the Indianapolis AP Bureau, who refused to comply with the request, as well as the Washington AP Bureau, who also refused to comply. Paoletta also stated that he was unaware of the press ever publishing the private email address of any former Second Lady, thus insinuating that the AP's actions were unprecedented in the annals of journalism.
Vice President Pence took to Twitter on Saturday evening in order to demand an apology from the AP, and included the complete letter Paoletta had fired off to Pruitt. So far, the AP has yet to respond.
When we requested they take it down, they refused. The @AP owes my wife an apology. pic.twitter.com/LdMmnewnWF
— Vice President Pence (@VP) March 4, 2017
The AP's frosty relationship with the Trump White House
Tensions between the Associated Press and the Trump administration have been growing since late January.
On January 23, Press Secretary Sean Spicer broke with long-standing White House tradition by refusing to give the AP the honor of asking the first question during a press conference, instead giving that honor to The New York Post.
Spicer snubbed the AP again the following day, giving the first question to the upstart conservative news website LifeZette.
The Associated Press retaliated by publishing its own hit piece about LifeZette later that day. The hastily-written article was slammed by conservative pundits, who pointed out numerous factual inaccuracies in the piece.