Sean “Spicy Facts” Spicer is a loquacious man when he wants to be, and when he doesn’t, well, he hides in bushes to avoid reporters who want to know what the hell is going on in the White House.
After finishing an interview with Fox News, Spicy Facts hid behind tall hedges on the White House grounds to avoid reporters who were eager to get to the press secretary after news that the FBI director had just been fired, the Washington Post reports.
“To get back to his office, Spicer would have to pass a swarm of reporters wanting to know why President Trump suddenly decided to fire [James Comey],” the Post reports.
According to the Post, Spicer also shouted from his office that Comey had been fired, which doesn’t really follow White House press secretary protocol, and then locked himself in his office around 5:40 p.m. Tuesday. Knowing that he couldn’t stay hidden forever, Spicy left his office and tried to speed-walk “up the White House drive to defend the president” with Kellyanne Conway and deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, but the press would have none of it.
According to the Post report, Spicy hid behind the hedges until finally an executive assistant told the press that he would answer questions:
“Just turn the lights off. Turn the lights off,” he ordered. “We’ll take care of this. ... Can you just turn that light off?”
Spicer got his wish and was soon standing in near darkness between two tall hedges, with more than a dozen reporters closely gathered around him.
[...] Exactly 10 minutes after he started answering questions, Spicer stopped. “Anyway,” Spicer said abruptly, “thank you, guys.”
During a White House press briefing Wednesday, the first press briefing since Comey was fired, Spicy was notably absent, leaving the duties to Huckabee Sanders, who conducted her first briefing just last week, CNN reports. While it was odd that the press secretary would be absent during arguably one of the biggest news events to hit the White House, the administration assured the press that Spicy only missed the briefing to attend Navy Reserve duty, which administration officials said was previously scheduled.
Read more at the Washington Post and CNN.