Under President Trump, such sessions have all but vanished. Since the first of the year, Ms. Sanders has held two formal briefings. She has also developed a frustrating reputation for not responding to media inquiries in general.

This presumably pleases her boss. Mr. Trump prefers to broadcast to the public from the safety of Twitter, where truth and accountability are not held at a premium. In January, he even directed Ms. Sanders (in a tweet) “not to bother” with briefings anymore. Is a White House press secretary unwilling to interact with the press earning her taxpayer-funded salary?

In Ms. Sanders’s case, the growing lack of access is arguably less troubling than the lack of credibility — a problem highlighted in last Thursday’s release of the Mueller report.

The special counsel’s office detailed several instances in which, in her official capacity, Ms. Sanders flagrantly lied to the media and the American public.

After the firing of the F.B.I. director, James Comey, in May 2017, Ms. Sanders, then the deputy press secretary, claimed on two occasions that she’d heard from “countless” current and former agents that the “rank-and-file” had lost confidence in him. When later questioned by Mr. Mueller’s office, Ms. Sanders admitted that this was untrue — or, rather, that it had been a “slip of the tongue” made “in the heat of the moment.”