A photographer for Russian state media is urging American journalists to not “lose their professional dignity” after its embassy shared photos of President Trump and Russian leaders Wednesday.
“Honestly, this is nonsense to me. I am an individual who is not in the public eye and I’ve never commented on my work before but this hysteria around my photoshoot at the White House has forced me to write this post,” Tass photographer Alexandr Scherbak posted to Facebook.
Scherbak maintains there was nothing unusual about the photoshoot with Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He says after the meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson he underwent a standard security screening and was taken by a U.S. representative to the White House, where he was later able to photograph the president.
“The photoshoot was usual, with the delegations exchanging handshakes, a verbal exchange, and then the meeting began. We worked for just a minute and that’s all. I left the Oval Office and returned to the room where I was staying. When the meeting was over, we went to the Russian embassy for a news conference. And then we took off. I am urging US journalists not to lose their professional dignity and not to pin the blame on other people for their failure in organizing the photoshoot and the failure to provide access to their media. I have worked as a professional photo correspondent for many years and I am facing such absurd and ludicrous charges for the first time,” Scherbak said.
According to some reports, the White House was outraged after Tass released the photos of Trump with Lavrov, and also with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, whose meeting with Trump had not been announced by the White House. Trump fired his then-national security adviser Mike Flynn for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Kislyak before the inauguration.
“They tricked us,” an unnamed White House official told CNN. “That’s the problem with the Russians — they lie.”
The White House has since released official photos of the meeting with Lavrov, but not with Kislyak.
