The pool has traditionally been overseen by the WHCA to ensure that access isn’t limited to those covering the sitting administration favorably.

A federal law enforcement source warns that monitoring could theoretically be used to gather political intelligence on federal employees, while the administration looks for more palatable reasons to terminate them later; similar to how law enforcement may obtain evidence that's inadmissible in the course of a criminal investigation, but then search for another evidentiary basis to file charges.

The newly-elected president, his administration, and his political allies have conducted a rapid series of attacks on press freedom that amount to a monumental assault on freedom of information.