Sean Spicer defends jobs report tweets that apparently broke one-hour rule

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has apologized for apparently breaking a federal rule by not waiting at least one hour to publicly comment on a new employment report issued by the government, reports the New York Times.

He told reporters during a press briefing on Friday, "I apologize if we were a little excited. And we're so glad to see so many fellow Americans back to work."

He also reasoned that the figures had already been reported by news outlets and that no market disruption likely occurred as a result.

However, he brushed off a comment that the Obama White House, in a reporter's words, "went out of their way not to comment in that hour-long period."

According to the Times, the U.S. Labor Department issued a jobs report at 8:30 am on Friday, and President Trump retweeted a Drudge Report link about the news at 8:41 am.

Several minutes later, Spicer tweeted a series of messages including one which read, "Great news for American workers: economy added 235,000 new jobs, unemployment rate drops to 4.7% in first report for @POTUS Trump."

He also retweeted an NBC News report and commented on his original tweet by writing, "Not a bad way to start day 50 of this Administration."

As the Times notes, those tweets appear to break a rule adopted under President Reagan in 1985 which states, in part, that "...the executive branch shall not comment publicly on the data until at least one hour after the official release time."

The White House's Office of Management and Budget had explained that the rule is intended to "preserve the distinction between the policy-neutral release of data by statistical agencies and their interpretation by policy officials."