CNN legal analyst clashes with White House over Hur report: 'Defensive bluster'

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig challenged White House Counsel spokesman Ian Sams to "respond with substance rather than defensive bluster" after Sams blasted his coverage of the Hur report.

On Friday, Honig published a piece for New York Magazine arguing that President Biden knew "all along" he had classified documents in his home and "definitely misled the American public." After the piece was quoted and shared by NBC News correspondent Ken Dilanian, Sams lashed out at both parties. 

The White House, and particularly Sams, has been trying to discredit claims about Special Counsel Robert Hur's report into Biden's handling of classified documents. 

"This is an embarrassingly false assessment by Elie Honig, amplified by Ken Dilanian, both of whom are smart and can read but apparently haven’t," Sams wrote in a social media post. "All these theories are raised in the report then thoroughly dissembled by facts & evidence. I laid it all out in a letter to the press."

Honig rejected Sams’ critique, arguing instead that "The White House spokesperson should read the piece and respond with substance rather than defensive bluster."

Sams' tweet included a copy of his controversial letter to the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) criticizing members for having "reported striking inaccuracies" he said gave a misleading portrayal of Hur's conclusions. He also charged that reporters in the White House briefing room have asked questions including "false content or are based on false premises." 

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WHCA President Kelly O’Donnell responded forcefully with a letter of her own, calling Sams' letter "misdirected" and writing, "It is inappropriate for the White House to utilize internal pool distribution channels, primarily for logistics and the rapid sharing of need-to-know information, to disseminate generalized critiques of news coverage." 

She also asserted "the WHCA does not, cannot and will not serve as a repository for the government’s views of what’s in the news."

Honig previously criticized the White House’s response to the Hur report, saying on CNN that Biden’s rhetoric at a prime-time press conference responding to the findings "blew my mind." 

"Two things he said are completely the opposite of what Robert Hur found," he said. "First, Joe Biden says ‘I did not act willfully.’ That means voluntarily, intentionally. The second sentence of the summary says, ‘President Biden willfully retained classified materials.’ The facts in here show it was willful. He knew. He talked about it." 

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Honig followed by pointing out that while Biden claimed that he did not disclose documents to his ghostwriter, the special counsel's report indicated otherwise. 

"Mr. Biden shared information, including some classified information from those notebooks with his ghostwriter," Honig said, quoting from the report. He went on to say that Biden is "on tape after he’s out of the vice presidency, saying to his autobiographer [that] the classified documents are in the basement."

Honig and O’Donnell are not the only journalists who have challenged Sams.

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Last Friday, Jon Decker, the White House correspondent for Gray Television, took issue with Sams' credentials and asked for the White House counsel to take over the press briefing because the spokesman had allegedly given factually incorrect information. 

Sams asked, "Should I be offended by that?" He stammered in surprise, "What? I mean, come on."

NBC News, Dilanian and Sams did not respond to inquiries, while N.Y. Magazine and CNN declined to comment. 

Fox News' Jeffrey Clark and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.