Story About White House Scrubbing Obama Daughter Travel Story Has Now Been Scrubbed

Citing security concerns, Politico removes a detail about Malia Obama’s trip to Mexico.

The White House’s campaign to scrub a story from the internet yesterday about Malia Obama’s trip to Mexico has gone meta: a media reporter’s blog post about the administration’s efforts to scrub the story has now been scrubbed of certain details, Politico confirmed.

The item, first posted last night by Politico’s Dylan Byers, originally noted that news sites were removing the Malia story.

Then, this morning, the post was updated with comment from the White House confirming that it was involved with efforts to remove the story — but the Politico post itself was now missing information about the trip. Specifically, the current version of the story makes no reference to where the president’s daughter is going: Mexico, which can also be found by Googling Obama’s daughter’s name and “trip.”

Rachel Smolkin, Politico’s White House editor, confirmed that they removed the information after talking to the Obama administration, citing safety concerns.

“After some internal discussions and conversations with the White House, we adjusted the post for security reasons,” Smolkin told BuzzFeed.

The administration has gone to great lengths to crack down on this story, possibly sending a signal to media outlets that, as the general election nears, the president’s children will be off limits.