The White House on Tuesday urged Americans to watch an online video made by an infamous rightwing activist known for using heavily edited videos to push conservative pet causes, despite not being able to vouch for its accuracy.

In Tuesday’s press briefing, the first on-camera briefing in a week, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders used the lectern at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to attack CNN for purveying fake news and what she called the “Trump-Russia hoax”.

She then went on to cite a video being pushed by James O’Keefe, a rightwing provocateur who was convicted of a misdemeanor for breaking into a US senator’s office in 2010. Sanders lauded the video, which apparently shows John Bonifield, a CNN health editor, complaining about the network’s coverage of the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia. Bonfield is not involved in the network’s Russia-related coverage.

“There’s a video circulating now, whether it’s accurate or not, I don’t know, but I would encourage everyone in this room and everyone in this country to take a look at it,” said Sanders. The White House spokeswoman pointedly declined to mention CNN by name and instead only referred to it as “that outlet that you referenced.”

The tirade came in response to a question from Charlie Spiering, a reporter for Breitbart, the rightwing online publication once run by top White House aide Steve Bannon.

On Tuesday the president went on yet another early morning Twitter tirade against CNN for “fake news” in the wake of the resignations of three journalists at the network over a story about a Trump aide’s ties to Russia. The story was posted to the CNN website on Thursday and was removed, with all links disabled, on Friday night. CNN said the story did not receive sufficient editorial scrutiny, and was considered “a breakdown in editorial workflow.”

Trump wrote three tweets in a two-hour period referring to CNN’s “fake news”, and retweeted a photoshopped graphic in a fourth tweet saying the same thing. In the White House press briefing, Sanders complained: “The constant barrage of fake news directed at this president, probably, that has garnered a lot of his frustration.”