Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office rejected a request from the ABC to allow its Washington bureau chief John Lyons to attend a press conference alongside Donald Trump, days after he fronted a Four Corners investigation into the president’s personal finances.

Lyons is not on the list to attend the Oval Office. The ABC’s Canberra-based national affairs correspondent Jane Norman is expected to be present. The ABC is still lobbying for Lyons’ entry to the meeting after Trump clashed with the public broadcaster’s most senior reporter in the US capital last month, saying he was going to “tell [Albanese] about you”.

It is unclear why several requests by the ABC for Lyons to attend the Oval Office media event were rejected, though sources close to the prime minister’s office suggested it

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