A reporter in West Virginia was arrested and charged with a crime Tuesday after he repeatedly attempted to question Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.
Price was walking through a hallway in the state Capitol, which he was visiting with Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway as part of a "listening tour" on the opioid crisis. Several protesters were gathered in the hallway, as was Dan Heyman, a reporter for the Public News Service.
Heyman says he asked the HHS secretary whether domestic violence would qualify as a pre-existing condition under the Republican health care bill.
When Price didn't answer, Heyman repeated the question. The reporter says he was recording on his phone, which he was holding out toward Price; officials say he was "trying aggressively" to breach Secret Service security.
"I was yelling out questions, and that was it," Heyman said at a news conference shared online by the West Virginia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Dan Heyman, a reporter for the Public News Service, was arrested and charged with "willful disruption of governmental processes," a misdemeanor.
West Virginia Dept. of Military Affairs and Public Safety
Heyman was handcuffed, arrested and charged with "willful disruption of governmental processes," a misdemeanor. Heyman has been released on a $5,000 bond.
The criminal complaint accuses Heyman of "aggressively breaching the Secret Service agents to the point where the agents were forced to remove him a couple of times from the area" and "causing a disturbance by yelling questions."
It cites a law against interrupting or molesting "the orderly and peaceful process" of state government, although it does not clarify which government process was interrupted.
