White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders shared a video Wednesday evening of CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s interaction with President Trump and a White House intern to defend the White House’s decision to revoke Acosta’s press pass. A WIRED review of Sanders’ video reveals that it originated with conservative media sites and was presented in a way that makes the incident seem more dramatic than it was. Images from the video may not have been altered, but the effect is potentially misleading to viewers.

In releasing the video, Sanders said it offered proof of Acosta’s “inappropriate behavior” with the intern. But differences between Sanders’ video and an unedited version of the incident led to charges Wednesday that the White House had altered the video for political purposes.

What Actually Happened?

While Acosta was questioning President Trump at a press briefing, a White House intern attempted to grab his microphone. Acosta didn’t let go of the mic, and attempted to avoid her grasp. During the three-second scuffle, his wrist and lower arm appears to touch her arm. The White House calls this behavior “inappropriate” and has revoked Acosta’s press pass. Sanders posted an edited video of the event as proof.

Was footage of an exchange between CNN's Jim Acosta, President Trump and a White House intern released by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders doctored? Here a side-by-side comparison of the original C-SPAN footage and the clip released by Sanders.

Who Made the Video?

The video posted by Sanders appears identical to a video shared two hours earlier by Paul Joseph Watson, an editor-at-large at the right-wing media site InfoWars. Both videos were edited in the same way and had no sound. While the White House hasn’t responded to inquiries about the source of the video posted by Sanders, it seems reasonable to say that the chance the two videos were created independently is extraordinarily low.

While the first four seconds of Watson’s video appear to be from a C-Span feed, the true origins of the clip are a bit more complicated. It’s notable that neither Watson’s nor Sanders’ video has sound, as the source video for both appears to be a three-second GIF circulated in conservative circles moments after the actual event took place.

At 12:34 pm Wednesday, ForAmerica, a conservative group popular on Twitter, posted this three-second GIF of the press conference lifted from C-Span’s feed.

Twelve minutes later, the Daily Wire, a right-wing news and opinion blog, posted the same GIF. Both were retweeted by Watson, who was also live-tweeting the press conference.

Roughly eight hours later, Watson tweeted a 15-second edit of the GIF, which he confirmed in a tweet was made using the GIF posted by the Daily Wire. Two hours after that, Sanders included what appears to be the same video in her tweet. In a tweet, Watson stated that he did not edit the footage, but a screenshot he later posted of the editing track for the video indicates some edits may have been made.

Is the Video Accurate?

The video was altered in a way that is misleading and dramatizes events. It is extremely low quality, likely because it’s a combination of edits and reuploads. The raw video used to create the GIF was taken from a C-Span feed with an odd camera angle, which serves to make the whole affair seem more dramatic.