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 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrives for a meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington on May 10, 2017. | Getty News outlets shut out of Trump meeting with Russians 
 
 On Wednesday morning as controversy swirled over the president abruptly firing his FBI chief amid an investigation of possible ties between Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, the president met in the Oval Office with none other than Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. 
 
 But the meeting was closed press, meaning the rotating pool of photographers, reporters and camera operators who follow the president weren't allowed in. Yet photos of the three laughing and smiling were soon published by the Russian state news agency TASS. The Russian foreign ministry also tweeted photos of the meeting. 
 
 Asked by the print pooler why members of the Russian media were allowed into the meeting but no U.S. press was permitted, a White House official said, "Our official photographer and their official photographer were present, that's it," meaning TASS was considered the Russians' "official photographer." 
 
 Controversy over access to meetings with the president is not new. Barack Obama's White House was widely criticized for holding closed press meetings, only to later share photos shot by the president's official photographer Pete Souza. In 2013, the White House Correspondents’ Association said that practice amounted to establishing "the White House’s own Soviet-style news service." 
 
 On Wednesday, media outlets had to contend with how to present photos that were clearly newsworthy but were also state-sponsored handouts from a foreign government. 
 
 Fox News chose not to air them, with anchor Jenna Lee noting that while the photos were available online, "we are choosing not to show them because as part of the press here in the United States, we think it's important that the press have access to official photos from the White House." 
 
 At MSNBC, a photo was briefly aired, while White House correspondent Hallie Jackson explained that it came from the Russians. Andrea Mitchell later made a note about "freedom of the press" around the American media being blocked from the meeting. 
 
 CNN also aired a photo, choosing to show it directly from the Russian foreign ministry and embassy's Twitter feed. Anchor Wolf Blitzer pointed out that "American pool cameras were not allowed into the room for any coverage." 
 
 Over at CBS, head of standards Al Ortiz sent an email to staff saying they "should and could" use the photos, "but you should say where they came from (Russian government), and we should report that the US pool was kept out of the meeting." 
 
 One White House correspondent, speaking on background, remarked on the unusual nature of the entire morning: None of the press were alerted that Kislyak would also be at the meeting until photos from the Russian embassy emerged. At one point the pool was hastily assembled at one point for what they thought was a photo spray ending the meeting with Lavrov, but as the press filed into the Oval Office they discovered instead former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sitting there. 
 
 The chummy visit by such a high-ranking Russian official is particularly unusual, the correspondent said, because it comes just months after U.S. intelligence services concluded that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections. ||||| CLOSE Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrives at the White House ahead of Oval Office talks with President Donald Trump, a rare honor bestowed on a non-head of government. Newslook 
 
 This handout photo released by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shows President Trump meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office of the White House on May 10, 2017. ORG XMIT: (Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry via AP) 
 
 At a time of strain between the White House and the media over coverage of the new administration, reporters raised questions Wednesday as to why a photographer from the Russian media, but not the U.S. press, was apparently allowed into an Oval Office meeting between President Trump and Russian officials. 
 
 The issue surfaced after photos of the meeting, including Trump shaking hands with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and controversial Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, appeared in the Russian media. 
 
 The images were taken by a photographer from TASS, the Russian state-owned new agency. 
 
 The issue was further inflamed by the presence of Kislyak, who has been at the center of several controversies involving administration officials, including now fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Russian embassy even tweeted a photograph of Trump smiling broadly as he put his arm around the diplomat while shaking his hand in the Oval Office. 
 
 Flynn was fired in February for lying to Vice President Mike Pence by denying that he had discussed the issue of U.S. sanctions with Kislyak. Sessions recused himself from any investigations involving the Trump administration and Russia after acknowledging that he had failed to tell senators during his confirmation hearing that he had met previously with he diplomat. 
 
 In addition, Kislyak was brought into the Trump Tower in New York in December out of the sight of reporters for a meeting with Flynn and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and now senior advisor, according to The New York Times. 
 
 The photos were taken by TASS photographer Alexander Shcherbak and credited to him by the agency, which included a copyright symbol in photo captions in its own news reports of the meeting. The photos were also distributed by the Associated Press, which credits the Russian Foreign Ministry as the source, and Getty Images, which credits TASS. 
 
 After the photos began circulating, members of the White House press corps inquired whether the Russian media had been allowed into the closed meetings. 
 
 The White House responded, according to a White House pool report, by saying, "On background, our official photographer and their official photographer were present, that's it." 
 
 Talking Points Memosays TASS Washington bureau chief, Andrei Sitov, told TPM initially that no one from his Washington bureau was present at the meeting, but later revised his comments. 
 
 “Apparently the TASS person was admitted at the request of the Russian Foreign Ministry as the official photographer for the Russian side,” Sitov told TPM in a later email. “He is permanently assigned to cover FM Lavrov. His pictures from the meeting are available at the Russian FM’s Flickr. I was not even aware of this.” 
 
 Frequently the White House press pool is allowed in the room at the start of an official meetings to take photograph and, if possible, to ask the participants questions. 
 
 In addition to the photos, TASS provided comments by Lavrov on the Oval Office meeting with Trump, which had followed bilateral talks between him and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. 
 
 Lavrov told TASS that in the meeting with Trump, "(we) discussed, first and foremost, our cooperation on the international stage." 
 
 "At present, our dialogue is not as politicized as it used to be during Obama’s presidency," Lavrov said. "The Trump administration, including the president himself and the secretary of state, are people of action who are willing to negotiate." 
 
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– It's an otherwise unremarkable image of the photo-op variety, showing President Trump shaking hands with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office on Wednesday. But it's causing a fuss because of how it came to be. The meeting was closed to the media, but Russia's state-owned TASS news agency posted photos of the get-together soon after it ended. TASS also distributed them to the AP, reports USA Today. That surprised White House officials, who thought only official government photographers were supposed to be present, and had members of the US press corps questioning why they were shut out while the Russian media was allowed in. The explanation is that Russia apparently doesn't make a distinction between an official government photographer and a Tass photographer. "We were not informed by the Russians that their official photographer was dual-hatted and would be releasing the photographs on the state news agency," a White House official tells the Washington Post. The newspaper talks to former intelligence officials who see allowing a fully equipped TASS photographer into the Oval Office as a security risk, given the possibility of him planting a bug of some sort. It notes an exchange on Twitter in which former deputy CIA director David Cohen was asked whether it was wise and he responded succinctly, "No it was not." Politico adds some context, noting that former President Obama's White House took flak for closing meetings to the press and releasing "official" photos later—a practice the White House Correspondents’ Association likened to the "White House’s own Soviet-style news service." (Lavrov had an unusual reaction to James Comey's firing earlier in the day.)