CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta apologized on Friday for saying “F– You” to a Twitter user in a direct message. In a tweet, Acosta said he had confused the person for an old friend. 
 
 “Hey buddy I thought you were an old friend from the campaign days. I’m so sorry. Hope I didn’t offend you. Have a good night and take care,” he said. 
 
 Hey buddy I thought you were an old friend from the campaign days. I’m so sorry. Hope I didn’t offend you. Have a good night and take care. https://t.co/4u9fj1BNPI — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 19, 2018 
 
 Also Read: Jim Acosta to Haters: 'I'm Allowed to Care About This Country' (Video) 
 
 The imbroglio began after Justin Caporale, a GOP consultant and former aide to first lady Melania Trump, attempted to troll Acosta after the CNN reporter complained about loud music at a Trump campaign rally he was covering. 
 
 “Tonight the Trump campaign/WH turned up the music so loud the press risers were vibrating,” said Acosta. “Nearly impossible to do live TV. I suppose the WH loves those kinds of shenanigans. But I wonder if it’s a security concern for USSS or local law enforcement. They can’t hear either.” 
 
 “Dear Diary…..” mocked Caporale. 
 
 Dear Diary….. — justin (@justincap_) October 19, 2018 
 
 That resulted in Acosta sending Caporale a private direct message with a blunt two word rejoinder before subsequently blocking him. Daily Caller reporter Peter Hasson, who was allowed access into Caporale’s Twitter account, confirmed that the message was real and offered by Acosta unsolicited. 
 
 And then he blocked me. pic.twitter.com/F5cq84LAF8 — justin (@justincap_) October 19, 2018 
 
 It’s unclear why Acosta would move to immediately block someone he thought was an “old friend.” Acosta did not immediately respond to request for comment from TheWrap. Reps for CNN declined to comment. Reached by phone, Caporale also declined to comment. 
 
 Acosta has long been a lightning rod among Trump-die hards and a frequent jousting partner for the president at press events. Trump has disparaged him to his face on live television as fake news. When Sarah Sanders held more regular press briefings, her sharp exchanges with the CNN reporter also frequently made headlines. ||||| A direct message sent by CNN Chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta was widely mocked by conservatives late Thursday night. 
 
 It all began with a tweet Acosta made from President Donald Trump‘s rally in Missoula, Montana. 
 
 Tonight the Trump campaign/WH turned up the music so loud the press risers were vibrating. Nearly impossible to do live TV. I suppose the WH loves those kinds of shenanigans. But I wonder if it’s a security concern for USSS or local law enforcement. They can’t hear either. — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 19, 2018 
 
 And Justin Caporale — identified as the former director of operations for Melania Trump — trolled him with the following response: 
 
 Dear Diary….. — justin (@justincap_) October 19, 2018 
 
 Well, that apparently got under Acosta’s skin since Justin followed up the tweet with a screenshot from his DMs. 
 
 “F**k you,” Acosta told Justin. 
 
 Peter Hasson verified that the DM was real. 
 
 Can confirm that this is a real message: https://t.co/MNHvM5xDcJ — Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) October 19, 2018 
 
 .@justincap_ allowed me to log into his account and view the message. Here’s a screenshot I took pic.twitter.com/r4F6EpbQAH — Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) October 19, 2018 
 
 And conservatives had some fun at the expense of the CNN journalist. 
 
 Jim: Coke please. Waiter: Is Pepsi okay? Jim: pic.twitter.com/KYWUmCFp2C — Matt’s Idea Shop (@MattsIdeaShop) October 19, 2018 
 
 UPDATE (2:15AM): Acosta offered this apology to Justin, telling him he thought he was an “old friend from the campaign days.” 
 
 Hey buddy I thought you were an old friend from the campaign days. I’m so sorry. Hope I didn’t offend you. Have a good night and take care. https://t.co/4u9fj1BNPI — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 19, 2018 
 
 [image via screengrab] 
 
 Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com ||||| FILE - In this Aug. 2, 2018 file photo, CNN correspondent Jim Acosta does a stand up before the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington. The White House on Wednesday suspended the press... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Aug. 2, 2018 file photo, CNN correspondent Jim Acosta does a stand up before the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington. The White House on Wednesday suspended the press pass of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta after he and President Donald Trump had a heated confrontation... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Aug. 2, 2018 file photo, CNN correspondent Jim Acosta does a stand up before the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington. The White House on Wednesday suspended the press pass of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta after he and President Donald Trump had a heated confrontation... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Aug. 2, 2018 file photo, CNN correspondent Jim Acosta does a stand up before the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington. The White House on Wednesday suspended the press... (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — A video distributed by the Trump administration to support its argument for banning CNN reporter Jim Acosta from the White House appears to have been doctored to make Acosta look more aggressive than he was during an exchange with a White House intern, an independent expert said Thursday. 
 
 White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted the video, which shows Acosta asking President Donald Trump a question on Wednesday as the intern tries to take his microphone away. But a frame-by-frame comparison with an Associated Press video of the same incident shows that the one tweeted by Sanders appears to have been altered to speed up Acosta's arm movement as he touches the intern's arm, according to Abba Shapiro, an independent video producer who examined the footage at AP's request. 
 
 Earlier, Shapiro noticed that frames in the tweeted video were frozen to slow down the action, allowing it to run the same length as the AP one. 
 
 The alteration is "too precise to be an accident," said Shapiro, who trains instructors to use video editing software. The tweeted video also does not have any audio, which Shapiro said would make it easier to alter. 
 
 Sanders, who hasn't said where the tweeted video came from, noted that it clearly shows Acosta made contact with the intern. 
 
 While the origin of the manipulated video is unclear, its distribution marked a new low for an administration that has been criticized for its willingness to mislead. 
 
 The White House News Photographers Association decried the sharing of the footage. 
 
 "As visual journalists, we know that manipulating images is manipulating truth," said Whitney Shefte, the association's president. "It's deceptive, dangerous and unethical. Knowingly sharing manipulated images is equally problematic, particularly when the person sharing them is a representative of our country's highest office with vast influence over public opinion." 
 
 CNN has labeled Sanders' characterization of Acosta's exchange with the intern as a lie. Its position has been supported by witnesses including Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason, who was next to Acosta during the news conference and tweeted that he did not see Acosta place his hands on the White House employee. Rather, he said he saw him holding on to the microphone as she reached for it. 
 
 "The irony of this White House video involving Jim Acosta is that if it is found to be doctored, it will show the administration to be doing what it accuses the news media of doing — engaging in fake information," said Aly Colon, a professor in journalism ethics at Washington & Lee University. 
 
 Several journalists and organizations — including the American Society of News Editors, the Associated Press Media Editors and the Online News Association — demanded Acosta's press pass be reinstated. 
 
 "It is the essential function of a free press in every democracy to independently gather and report information in the public interest, a right that is enshrined in the First Amendment," said Julie Pace, AP's Washington bureau chief. "We strongly reject the idea that any administration would block a journalist's access to the White House." 
 
 The New York Times editorialized in favor of restoring Acosta's pass, saying it signaled Trump's view that asking hard questions disqualifies reporters from attending briefings. The newspaper said that if Sanders was so offended by physical contact, "what did she have to say when her boss praised as 'my kind of guy' Rep. Greg Gianforte of Montana, who was sentenced to anger management classes and community service for body-slamming a Guardian reporter last spring?" 
 
 CNN has been a frequent target of the president, who has characterized journalists as enemies of the people and who routinely accuses the mainstream media of spreading "fake news." And Acosta has been one of the more visible thorns in the side of the White House. During their verbal altercation on Wednesday, Trump called Acosta a "terrible person." 
 
 Still, it's rare for the White House to pull the so-called hard passes from journalists. 
 
 During Lyndon Johnson's presidency, the Secret Service denied clearance to Robert Sherrill, a reporter for The Nation who had gotten into physical fights with government officials. During the George W. Bush presidency, Trude Feldman, who worked for various news outlets, was suspended for 90 days after security cameras recorded her looking through a press aide's desk late one night. In the 1970s, President Nixon tried to get Washington Post reporters banned from the White House. 
 
 Despite losing his White House pass, Acosta is expected to travel to Paris this weekend to cover Trump's trip to meet with world leaders. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Calvin Woodward reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Jill Colvin, Catherine Lucey, Zeke Miller, Tami Abdollah, Padmananda Rama and Deb Reichmann contributed from Washington. ||||| New York (CNN) CNN has filed a lawsuit against President Trump and several of his aides, seeking the immediate restoration of chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta's access to the White House. 
 
 The lawsuit is a response to the White House's suspension of Acosta's press pass, known as a Secret Service "hard pass," last week . The suit alleges that Acosta and CNN's First and Fifth Amendment rights are being violated by the ban. 
 
 The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday morning. It was docketed and assigned to Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee. The judge has given the defendants an 11 a.m. Wednesday deadline to file responses to the suit. He has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. 
 
 Both CNN and Acosta are plaintiffs in the lawsuit. There are six defendants: Trump, chief of staff John Kelly, press secretary Sarah Sanders, deputy chief of staff for communications Bill Shine, Secret Service director Randolph Alles, and the Secret Service officer who took Acosta's hard pass away last Wednesday. 
 
 The six defendants are all named because of their roles in enforcing and announcing Acosta's suspension. 
 
 "This is not a step we have taken lightly. But the White House action is unprecedented," CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker said in an internal memo to staff. 
 
 Sanders responded to the suit by saying that CNN is "grandstanding" by suing. She said the administration will "vigorously defend" itself. ( Read the White House's full response here. 
 
 In a statement on Tuesday morning, CNN said it is seeking a preliminary injunction so that Acosta can return to the White House right away, and a ruling from the court preventing the White House from revoking Acosta's pass in the future. 
 
 "CNN filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration this morning in DC District Court," the statement read. "It demands the return of the White House credentials of CNN's Chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta. The wrongful revocation of these credentials violates CNN and Acosta's First Amendment rights of freedom of the press, and their Fifth Amendment rights to due process. We have asked this court for an immediate restraining order requiring the pass be returned to Jim, and will seek permanent relief as part of this process." 
 
 The White House Correspondents' Association said it "strongly supports CNN's goal of seeing their correspondent regain a US Secret Service security credential that the White House should not have taken away in the first place." 
 
 CNN also asserted that other news organizations could have been targeted by the Trump administration this way, and could be in the future. 
 
 "While the suit is specific to CNN and Acosta, this could have happened to anyone," the network said. "If left unchallenged, the actions of the White House would create a dangerous chilling effect for any journalist who covers our elected officials." 
 
 Sanders pointed out that lots of other CNN reporters and producers have press passes. But to many journalists and press defenders, that's not the issue. Echoing the views of many journalists, the correspondents' association said the president "should not be in the business of arbitrarily picking the men and women who cover him." 
 
 Trump's actions and threats fly in the face of decades of tradition and precedent. Republican and Democratic administrations alike have had a permissive approach toward press passes, erring on the side of greater access, even for obscure, partisan or fringe outlets. 
 
 The ACLU, in a statement supporting CNN, said "it is un-American and unlawful for the president to expel a reporter from the WH briefing room for doing his job. It shouldn't take a lawsuit from CNN to remind the president of the First Amendment." 
 
 The legal battle 
 
 On CNN's side, CNN Worldwide chief counsel David Vigilante is joined by two prominent attorneys, Ted Boutrous and Theodore Olson. Both men are partners at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. 
 
 Last week, before he was retained by CNN, Boutrous tweeted that the action against Acosta was "angry, irrational, false, arbitrary, capricious content-based discrimination," and thus a clear violation of the First Amendment. 
 
 In an interview on Tuesday morning, Boutrous said CNN tried to resolve the matter privately, but the White House was not responsive so "we really had no choice but to sue." 
 
 "We didn't want to have to go to court. We wanted to just report the news," he said. "Mr. Acosta wants to report the news. CNN wants to report the news." 
 
 CNN's lawsuit cites, among other precedents, a 1977 ruling in favor of Robert Sherrill, a muckraking journalist who was denied access to the White House in 1966. 
 
 Eleven years later, a D.C. Court of Appeals judge ruled that the Secret Service had to establish "narrow and specific" standards for judging applicants. In practice, the key question is whether the applicant would pose a threat to the president. 
 
 The code of federal regulations states that "in granting or denying a request for a security clearance made in response to an application for a White House press pass, officials of the Secret Service will be guided solely by the principle of whether the applicant presents a potential source of physical danger to the President and/or the family of the President so serious as to justify his or her exclusion from White House press privileges." 
 
 There are other guidelines as well. Floyd Abrams, one of the country's most respected First Amendment lawyers, said case law specifies that before a press pass is denied, "you have to have notice, you have to have a chance to respond, and you have to have a written opinion by the White House as to what it's doing and why, so the courts can examine it." 
 
 "We've had none of those things here," Abrams said. 
 
 CNN's suit makes the same point. 
 
 White House's shifting rationales 
 
 Acosta found out about his suspension when he walked up to the northwest gate of the White House, as usual, for a live shot last Wednesday night. He was abruptly told to turn in his "hard pass," which speeds up entry and exit from the grounds. 
 
 "I was just told to do it," the Secret Service officer said. 
 
 Around the same time Acosta was denied entry to the White House grounds, Sanders announced the decision and claimed that he had behaved inappropriately at a presidential news conference earlier in the day. 
 
 At first Sanders accused Acosta of "placing his hands" on an intern who was trying to take a microphone away from him. In reality, Acosta held onto the mic, said "pardon me, ma'am," asked a followup question, then gave up the mic. 
 
 On Twitter, Sanders shared a distorted video clip of the press conference that didn't show the complete back-and-forth. The same video had been posted by an InfoWars personality two hours earlier. 
 
 The White House's rationale was widely mocked and dismissed by journalists across the political spectrum. And Trump himself has cast doubt on the rationale: He said on Friday that Acosta was "not nice to that young woman," but then he said, "I don't hold him for that because it wasn't overly, you know, horrible." 
 
 In Tuesday's response to the lawsuit, Sanders did not repeat her claim about Acosta "placing his hands" in the intern. Instead, she accused Acosta of being disrespectful and unprofessional. 
 
 As for the argument that Acosta isn't respectful enough, that justification "is not sufficient as a matter of law," CNN's lawsuit asserts. 
 
 "The content and viewpoint of CNN's and Acosta's reporting on the Trump administration—not his interaction with the staffer at the November 7 press conference—were the real reason the White House indefinitely revoked his press credentials," the suit states. 
 
 Acosta is on a previously scheduled vacation this week. He declined to comment on the lawsuit. Since his pass was suspended, he has continued to do part of his job, contacting sources and filing stories, but he has been unable to attend White House events or ask questions in person -- a basic part of any White House correspondent's role. 
 
 "Relevant precedent says that a journalist has a First Amendment right of access to places closed to the public but open generally to the press. That includes press rooms and news conferences," Jonathan Peters, a media law professor at the University of Georgia, told CNN last week. "In those places, if access is generally inclusive of the press, then access can't be denied arbitrarily or absent compelling reasons. And the reasons that the White House gave were wholly unconvincing and uncompelling." 
 
 Last Thursday, according to the suit, Zucker wrote to Kelly and requested reinstatement of Acosta's credentials. Zucker's message said that "no complaints were raised with CNN and there was no attempt to reach anyone at CNN before taking this unlawful action." 
 
 The next day, CNN sent a formal letter to the White House repeating the request and warning of a possible lawsuit. 
 
 Over the weekend, Acosta reported on the president's trip to France. Ahead of Trump's planned visit to an American military cemetery, he requested and received a credential from the French government, but was denied access by the Secret Service. 
 
 "It was not without irony to me that a U.S. White House correspondent who is an American citizen was denied access to a ceremony by his own government but was granted access by the government of France," CNN Washington bureau chief Sam Feist noted in a declaration attached to the lawsuit. 
 
 Feist said "Jim's ability to cover a public event of historic international importance was completely blocked by the White House." 
 
 A high-stakes case 
 
 David McCraw, the top newsroom lawyer at The New York Times, said instances of news organizations suing a president are extremely rare. 
 
 Past examples are The New York Times v. U.S., the famous Supreme Court case involving the Pentagon Papers in 1971, and CNN's 1981 case against the White House and the broadcast networks, when CNN sued to be included in the White House press pool. 
 
 The backdrop to this new suit, of course, is Trump's antipathy for CNN and other news outlets. He regularly derides reporters from CNN and the network as a whole. But he also seeks out attention from CNN and other outlets. 
 
 During his presidential campaign, Trump told CNN that, if elected, he would not kick reporters out of the White House. But since moving into the White House, he has mused privately about taking away credentials, CNN reported earlier this year. He brought it up publicly on Twitter in May, tweeting "take away credentials?" as a question. 
 
 And he said it again on Friday, two days after blacklisting Acosta. "It could be others also," he said, suggesting he may strip press passes from other reporters. Unprompted, he then named and insulted April Ryan, a CNN analyst and veteran radio correspondent. 
 
 "The revocation of Acosta's credentials is only the beginning," CNN's suit alleges. 
 
 Correction: The original version of this article listed the former director of the Secret Service as a defendant; the actual defendant is the current director.
– One of the reporters who tangles publicly with President Trump the most is himself in a bit of hot water over a tweet. Jim Acosta of CNN has apologized after tweeting "f--- you" (except he spelled it out) to a critic, reports Mediaite. Acosta also maintains that he mistook the person as an old friend, but not everyone is buying that. It all started Thursday night when Acosta tweeted a complaint that the Trump campaign turned up the music so loudly at a Trump rally that it was difficult to work—the implication being that it was deliberate. At that point, a former aide for Melania Trump, Justin Caporale, mocked Acosta with a tweet reading, "Dear Diary ..." That's when Acosta sent his controversial response—he did so in a private direct message, but Caporale then made it public. Acosta also blocked Caporale. As online criticism grew, and Caporale demanded an apology, Acosta responded: "Hey buddy I thought you were an old friend from the campaign days. I’m so sorry. Hope I didn’t offend you. Have a good night and take care." As the Wrap notes, the apology seems a bit odd given that Acosta also blocked Caporale, raising the question of why he would block a friend. Neither Acosta nor CNN has commented further. (Acosta also once tangled memorably with White House aide Stephen Miller.)