Reporters line up hoping to enter a briefing in US press secretary Sean Spicer's office at the White House on Friday. Credit:AP "Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on US. FIND NOW." Also excluded from the Friday briefing were the Los Angeles Times, Politico, the BBC, Huffington Post and BuzzFeed News. CNN's Sara Murray said: "We lined up. We were told there was a list ahead of time, which is sort of abnormal, but we put our name on a list. And then when we went to enter, I was blocked by a White House staffer, who said we were not on the list for … today."

US press secretary Sean Spicer holds a briefing in his office where only selected media were allowed to attend. Credit:AP Those who were welcomed in included conservative outlets Breitbart News, the One America News Network and The Washington Times, along with journalists from ABC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Fox News. We've been here before. During the 2016 campaign, Trump regularly banned the media he didn't like from covering his rallies and as President he's been winding himself up, with a barrage of attacks on media credibility. (From left) White House press secretary Sean Spicer, senior adviser Stephen Miller, adviser Hope Hicks and chief White House strategist Steve Bannon on Friday. Credit:AP Now with thousands of conservatives in Washington for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the administration has gone to the mattresses.

It was the campaign punishment routine that prompted the Spicer discourse on dictatorship in December, before the Trump inauguration and before Spicer had been tapped to be the presidential spokesman. US President Donald Trump gestures on stage during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday. Credit:Bloomberg At a media forum, Politico reporter Jake Sherman asked how a Trump White House would treat the news outlets it didn't like. "Look, there's a big difference between a campaign where it is a private venue using private funds and a government entity," Spicer answered. "I think we have a respect for the press when it comes to the government. That is something you can't ban an entity from." "Conservative, liberal or otherwise…that's what makes a democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship. I think there is a vastly different model when it comes to government and what should be expected, and that's on both sides."

Spicer had nailed himself in advance. A former GOP presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer threw up his hands: "The problem for Spicer is that he already clearly articulated his views on excluding media outlets from access at the White House. Since it's a publicly funded operation, it shouldn't happen." As the tempo of the media war rises, the unthinkable becomes possible. The White House is playing with fire. It was instructive that several news organisations approved to attend the Spicer briefing – Time magazine and the Associated Press – protested by not attending unless all media were welcome. And The Wall Street Journal , pleading it was not aware of the exclusions, said it would not attend future briefings from which others were excluded. The risk in continuing down this road is that Trump and Spicer may end up with a briefing room full of patsies.

Leaks cut both ways The leaks are driving Trump mad. But "sad!" to know, as the President would say, leaking and anonymous sourcing cuts both ways. CNN is reporting Trump's chief of staff Reince Priebus has been gnawing at the FBI bosses, pleading for them to anonymously brief reporters to push back The New York Times and CNN's recent reports on the Trump campaign's contacts with Russian intelligence officials. And the Homeland Security officials who briefed reporters this week on Trump's migrant crackdown have insisted on anonymity. On Thursday Trump's chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, used CPAC to rail against the media, and on Friday Trump was the main act, using the first 10 minutes of his speech for a rerun of his claim that "fake news" organisations are the "enemy of the people".

"They are very smart, they are very cunning, they are very dishonest," Trump told Delegates packed into a convention centre near Washington. "It doesn't represent the people; it never will represent the people." Demanding the media cease quoting unnamed sources, he said: "A few days ago, I called the fake news the enemy of the people because they have no sources; they just make it up." Lest he was misunderstood, Trump declared that criticism "doesn't bother me". But this is all very confusing, because during last year's campaign Candidate Trump regularly did no-name, background briefings for reporters; and in the past, he was known to call the New York tabloids, posing as his own PR agent, to plant stories about himself. The administration's acknowledgement that Priebus had discussed what the FBI knew about the Trump campaign's contacts with Russians prompted protests by former FBI agents. "The White House appears to have violated accepted protocols and procedures," former special agent Ali Soufan told The Guardian.

Loading Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who sits on the Senate intelligence committee which, like the FBI, is investigating Trump's ties to Russia, told reporters: "If, as Priebus claimed, the FBI not only discussed this issue with the White House but co-ordinated the White House's public statements, the American people would also have reason to doubt the impartiality both of the Bureau and the Department of Justice to which the FBI is responsible. These claims deserve further investigation." Reports say that despite dismissing the substance of The New York Times' February 14 report, the FBI resisted Priebus' requests for the agency to make a public statement to that effect. That prompted a request by Priebus to quote anonymous senior intelligence officials in rebutting the Times report, which FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe apparently OK'd.