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Reporter arrested after repeatedly questioning Health secretary

Amused

Elite Member
It begins...

http://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...king-hhs-secretary-price-healthcare-questions

Dan Heyman, a reporter for Public News Service, said he was arrested at the West Virginia State Capitol after trying to ask Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price a question about the House-passed healthcare bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

In a press conference held shortly after posting bail, Heyman said he asked Price repeatedly about whether domestic violence is considered a preexisting condition under the new GOP healthcare bill.

According to Heyman’s account, he waited for Price to come into the building and then reached past those accompanying Price with his phone and repeatedly asked his healthcare questions, adding that a number of other reporters wanted to bring up the issue of preexisting conditions.

He said capitol police at some point “decided I was just too persistent in asking this question and trying to do my job and so they arrested me.”

According to the criminal complaint by the capitol police, Heyman was "aggressively breaching the secret service agents to the point where the agents were forced to remove him a couple of times from the area walking up the hallway in the main building of the Capitol. The defendant was causing a disturbance at Ms. Conway and Secretary Price.”

The officer who filed the report said he and another officer “were able to detain the defendant before he tried aggressively to breach the security of the secret service.”

Heyman said he couldn’t remember how many times he asked the question,but he added that it is his job to ask questions, expressing disbelief that he was arrested.

“First time I’ve ever been arrested for asking a question. First time I’ve ever heard of someone getting arrested for asking a question,” he said.

Heyman said he asked his questions in a public space and received no warnings that he was in the wrong place or doing other activities to warrant his arrest.

“No police officer told me ‘you’re in the wrong place,’” he said.

The police “put hands on me, although they didn’t hurt me, certainly,” he added.

Heyman asked them if he was under arrest, according to his version of events, and they said “yes.” He also said he told the police he was a member of the press.

The police didn’t immediately read him his Miranda Rights, he added, because they said were not asking him questions.

“It’s dreadful. This is my job, this is what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to find out if someone is going to be affected by this healthcare law…I think it is a question that deserves to be answered,” he added.

Heyman had to pay $5,000 bond and was charged with willful disruption of governmental processes, a misdemeanor.
 
The tighter the noose around Trump's sagging neck gets, the tighter he will circle his wagons around him. Placing a veil of secrecy over the White House visitor's list is just the opening shot in Trump's efforts to keep the Trump family business dealings he's conducting from the White House from the purview of the public.

This particular style of culture is sure to permeate the Trump Administration right down to the janitors, of whom by now are seen as prime suspects for the damaging leaks coming out of 1600 Pennitentiary and surrounding facilities. The STFU OR ELSE order was sent out it seems.

Reminds me of how Bush 43 and Cheney liked to run their office, but at a much higher level of paranoia.

Of course, the more its seems that the Trump admin. is drawing the curtains at the windows, the more persistent the hounds from the press are going to sniff around to get at what Trump is trying to hide. As the OP link described, the press can be quite vociferous in their demands for transparency, and I can just hear the old familiar refrain from the Bush era coming back to the fore: "In the interest of national (personal) security......"

Incidents like these will only get more frequent as the wall around the Trump admin. gets built higher and higher.

A lot to hide and cover up Mr. Trump? Wait 'til the investigations start producing the results you've been having nightmares over.
 
Any video of how aggressively this guy was trying to ask his question? The description sounds like he was doing more than just asking a question by pushing his way past secret service.
 
Regardless of the villainy of the person being asked the question or the legitimacy of the question being asked, I don't morally agree with the press badgering someone who is asserting their desire not to answer the question.

Criminal behavior? I know far too little about what actually happened or law to say. But there's enough here to make me think it might be reasonable.
 
Regardless of the villainy of the person being asked the question or the legitimacy of the question being asked, I don't morally agree with the press badgering someone who is asserting their desire not to answer the question.

Criminal behavior? I know far too little about what actually happened or law to say. But there's enough here to make me think it might be reasonable.
What bounds should the press restrict themselves to when trying to ask questions, in your opinion?
 
What bounds should the press restrict themselves to when trying to ask questions, in your opinion?

That question is only slightly less complicated than asking me the meaning of life.

But I'll try to answer it as best I can. Most importantly, as my original response does, I believe there is a need to separate what I morally support and what I legally support.

From a legal ground, it is still somewhat fuzzy, but easier to answer. Legally I support very broad 1st amendment protections. Thus legally I would protect the right of a reporter to badger someone as relentlessly as they choose provided they are not intruding on private property or posing a safety threat. Those exclusions are the fuzzy part, but I'll say that I am generally OK with current laws in this regard but would lean toward loosening rather than tightening.

Morally, that is a different story. If someone has a right to withhold information and is asserting that right, I find it wrong to push the boundaries of violating their personal privacy or physical integrity in order to persuade an answer.

Practically, my moral answers won't work in the political word. But, thankfully, I have no desire to be a member of the press.

To draw an analogy: if a severely obese man chose to jog down a public street in my view wearing nothing but a speedo, I wouldn't support that. But if someone attacked him or tried to abridge that right, I would defend him.
 
Aren't we happy we voted for Trump already?

Lets celebrate more anarchy, bad behavior.

pretty sure the reporter was the anarchist.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/reporter-arrested-after-yelling-questions-at-tom-price
Heyman was arrested for "aggressively breaching the Secret Service agents to the point where the agents were forced to remove him a couple times from the area walking up the hallway in the main building of the Capitol."

the idiot was given several opportunities to cool his shit but he kept pressing and got locked up. boo fucking hoo for him.
 
Is this really "Trump"? The capital police arrested the guy, do we really think that Trump instructed them to arrest reporters asking specific questions?
 
Is this really "Trump"? The capital police arrested the guy, do we really think that Trump instructed them to arrest reporters asking specific questions?

No, of course not, although Trump does bear mention here because it is in keeping with the policies and actions of his administration.

That said, this doesn't legitimately sound like a case of government suppressing normal actions of the press anyway.
 
This is the cause:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/reporter-arrested-after-yelling-questions-at-tom-price

"It was his physical action and not that he was asking questions, that crossed the line," said Lawrence Messina, who was a statehouse reporter for the Associated Press before joining West Virginia's department of military affairs and public safety. He said protesters have been arrested in the statehouse in the past, but he wasn't aware of any reporter arrests.

It had nothing to do with his questions. He is a dumbass.
 
Is this really "Trump"? The capital police arrested the guy, do we really think that Trump instructed them to arrest reporters asking specific questions?

It was WV state capital police.

It's got nothing to with Trump or even the federal gov.

Fern.
 
You guys must be kidding!!! Trump is the greatest President of the United States we have ever had, bar none!!! Trump calls it like it is...no BS with Trump! Nothing but the TRUTH!!!
 
From somewhere in the background a fly on the wall heard "it was the greatest arrest ever, the police were fabulous, fantastic, the most beautiful arrest you've ever seen" and then it suddenly died when the flyswatter struck it.😛
 
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