Vice President JD Vance was reportedly the anonymous White House source behind a story that President Donald Trump’s administration is now pointing to as evidence for why Politico deserved to lose its White House access.

The revelation, first reported Wednesday by Oliver Darcy’s Status, adds a striking wrinkle to the administration’s defense of its Friday decision to boot Politico from the White House grounds alongside CNN and MS NOW.

The Washington Post reported just minutes earlier that the White House had identified six Politico stories in a Tuesday letter laying out its case against the outlet, accusing it of reporting that “threatened national security and/or spread falsehoods.”

Among the stories highlighted was a June report on negotiations to end the war in Iran, which relied on comments from an unnamed “senior administration official” who estimated the chances of reaching a preliminary agreement at between 80 and 85 percent.

But according to the Post, the comments did not come from an unauthorized leak. They were made during an official press call, hosted by the White House itself, in which the administration required participating journalists to identify the speaker only as a “senior administration official.”

Now, Status has identified that official as Vance.

According to Darcy, the vice president spoke to reporters from multiple outlets during the briefing about the administration’s negotiations with Iran. The participating journalists agreed to the White House’s terms granting Vance anonymity, Status reported. Status was not part of the briefing and therefore was not held to that agreement.

The Post obtained a recording of the call in which a White House aide explicitly established those ground rules before the briefing began.

“Good afternoon, and thank you for joining this press call,” the aide said. “The contents of this call are on background, attributable to a senior administration official. By remaining on the line, you agree to those terms. There is no embargo for the contents of the call.”

During the call, Vance discussed the likelihood that the U.S. and Iran would reach an agreement.

“I think the second thing is we do expect to be signing this agreement over the next few days,” he said. “I can’t give you an exact date. And if I were to give you a confidence that we were going to be finding this agreement, I maybe would have said 75 percent this morning. It’s probably more like 80, 85 percent now, but it’s not 100 percent.”

The White House nevertheless cited Politico’s resulting report in its letter defending the outlet’s ban, writing: “In June 2026, Politico cited a ‘senior administration official … granted anonymity’ said the odds of a preliminary deal to end the conflict with Iran were between 80 and 85 percent.”

The letter went on to warn that “Publication of sensitive security information, and misinformation about national security information, diverts White House resources and those of the national security team in particular.”

“The spread of misinformation, especially relating to national security, is a threat that undermines the President’s ability to safeguard the national security,” it added.

The Post also reported that Politico was hardly alone in covering the sanctioned briefing. The Associated Press, Bloomberg and CNBC were among the other news organizations that reported comments from the anonymous senior administration official. Those outlets were not included in the White House ban.

The letter was filed in court Tuesday as the Trump administration defended its removal of Politico, CNN and MS NOW from the White House grounds. The three outlets sued the administration on Monday seeking to restore their access. And according to the Post, Politico has until Friday at 5 p.m. to argue the letter’s contents.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment to Status or the Post, while Politico did not respond.

The post JD Vance Outed as Anonymous Source Behind Story Trump Used to Justify Banning Politico: Report first appeared on Mediaite.