Muslim ban comments deleted from Trump website minutes after reporter brings it up
Donald Trump’s pledge to impose a “Muslim ban” has been quietly removed from his campaign website minutes after a reporter challenged the controversial policy.
During a briefing with beleaguered press secretary Sean Spicer, ABC’s Cecilia Vega asked why the president’s campaign page still calls for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”.
The White House has repeatedly denied that Mr Trump’s executive order to block travel from six Muslim-majority countries is a “Muslim ban”.
Earlier in the year, the US Court of Appeals refused reinstate the initial ban on travellers, then from seven predominantly Muslim nations, after it was blocked by a lower court. The government is currently embroiled in a battle over the legality of the revised order.
Mr Spicer said he was “not aware” of the contents of Trump’s campaign page, adding: “You’d have to ask them.”
Moments after Spicer was asked about this Trump campaign page calling for a Muslim ban, it went blank. But Wayback Machine still has it pic.twitter.com/OAQnVNwpdi
— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) May 8, 2017
Minutes later the statement, which called for a lockdown until “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”, had disappeared from the website.
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However, digital archives reveal that the sentence in question had been on the website that morning, as Ms Vega rightly identified.
Crucially, the post itself, in which the pledge was written, has not been deleted — simply the text from it.
The page title still reads: Donald J Trump statement on preventing muslim immigration.
It also appears that this is not the only statement removed from the campaign website.
The page of the Trump campaign website that had Trump's December 2015 Muslim ban press release on it is now blank https://t.co/FEyidFPkGS pic.twitter.com/24EpfKFggD
— Anthony Zurcher (@awzurcher) May 8, 2017
Minutes after we asked the WH why the President's campaign website still calls for a Muslim ban, it appears the statement was deleted https://t.co/BBX9oiIczx
— Cecilia Vega (@CeciliaVega) May 8, 2017
In court yesterday, acting solicitor general Jeffrey Wall, arguing for the government, insisted the travel restrictions did not amount to a “Muslim ban”.
“Its text doesn’t have to anything to do with religion,” argued Wall.
The revised order, reduced from seven countries to six, was blocked by courts in Maryland and Hawaii earlier in the year. The government is now appealing the decision.
However, judges at the appeals court, repeatedly pointed to Trump and his associates’ prior comments about Muslims.
Judge Henry Floyd, a Democratic appointee, asked Wall if there was “anything other than willful blindness” that could prevent the court from interpreting Trump’s earlier remarks in connection with the policy.
Judge Robert King, also a Democratic appointee, later added: “He has never repudiated what he said about the Muslim ban. It’s still on his website.”