The move, by the Congressional Radio and Television Correspondents Gallery, comes weeks after the Kremlin-funded TV service had to register as a "foreign agent."
Russia's Kremlin-funded international TV news channel RT has been stripped of its Congressional press accreditation just weeks after complying with a U.S. Justice Department order to register as a "foreign agent."
The move, by the Executive Committee of the Congressional Radio and Television Correspondents Gallery, follows assurances that registration under the decades-old Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was a formality that would not affect RT's journalistic work.
But in a letter to RT, the Gallery cites registration under FARA as the reason for withdrawal of press credentials.
The letter, signed by executive committee chair Craig Caplan, states that the decision "to withdraw the news credentials of the RT Network…was taken in response to the registration of RT's operating company, T&R Productions…as a foreign agent."
RT said Thursday that it had earlier received assurances that FARA registration would not affect its operations and pointed to other foreign news organizations, including Japan's NHK and the China People's Daily, that were registered as "foreign agents" but continued to hold Congressional press accreditation.
RT quoted U.S. State Department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, as saying Tuesday that, "FARA does not police the content of information disseminated, does not limit the publication of information or advocacy materials, and does not restrict an organization’s ability to operate."
Earlier this month RT was told that it could no longer operate in the U.S. unless it complied with the Justice Department demand to register under FARA. It filed as a foreign agent on November 10.
RT's editor in chief, Margarita Simonyan, said double standards were being applied. "To all the self-righteous defenders of 'freedom of speech' who oh-so-ardently proclaimed that FARA registration places no restrictions whatsoever on RT's journalistic work in the US: Withdrawal of Congressional credentials speaks much louder than empty platitudes," Simonyan said.
