BS BULLETIN:
- A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to immediately restore White House access to CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
- Judge Timothy Kelly issued a 14-day temporary restraining order, finding the outlets were likely to succeed on their constitutional claims.
- The Trump administration argued White House access is a privilege and defended the ban partly on national-security grounds.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico are headed back inside the White House — at least for now.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a temporary restraining order early Thursday requiring the administration to immediately restore the hard-pass credentials of journalists from all three outlets. The order lasts 14 days unless the court says otherwise.
President Donald Trump announced the ban Sept. 18, accusing the organizations of spreading “FAKE NEWS” and saying media outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly report “FICTION and LIES.” Reporters from the organizations were subsequently denied access and had credentials deactivated or confiscated.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued, arguing they were being punished because of the content of their reporting and that the administration had violated both the First Amendment and their due-process rights.
Kelly found enough merit in those arguments to temporarily block the ban.
The judge said reporters had not received “constitutionally adequate due process” before their credentials were revoked. He also wasn’t convinced by the administration’s national-security defense, writing that the government offered “little to back up their asserted national security interest.”
Justice Department attorneys had argued that access to the White House is a privilege rather than a right and defended the president’s authority to determine who receives access.
The fight had already spread beyond the three organizations.
FOX News Media, ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News announced Monday that they were suspending pooled television coverage of Trump after CNN was prevented from fulfilling one of its assigned pool duties.
Kelly’s order does not permanently resolve the case. It restores the outlets’ access for 14 days while their broader constitutional challenge continues.
From CBS News:
In an eight-page ruling, Kelly said the three news outlets are likely to succeed in showing the bans lacked due process, writing that the journalists were not given prior notice of the bans or an opportunity to challenge them. And he noted that some of the CNN, MS NOW and Politico stories that the White House cited as justification for the bans were “routine” and, in certain cases, months old.
Kelly also said he is “skeptical” of the Trump administration’s claim that the bans were motivated by national security concerns.
“[Nothing] in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” said the judge, who was nominated by Mr. Trump during his first term. “Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House—instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting.”
There is one important limit to Kelly’s ruling: Getting CNN back through the White House gates doesn’t mean Trump has to answer CNN’s questions.
The First Amendment can protect journalists against being arbitrarily excluded from White House press facilities, but it does not give an individual reporter the power to compel the president to call on them, answer a question or grant an interview.
In fact, the federal appeals court precedent underlying the dispute specifically recognizes the president’s discretion to grant interviews to selected journalists.
So Kelly can order the administration to give CNN its credentials back. He can’t order Trump to say, “Yes, CNN, you in the front row.”
DBS WIRE SOURCES:
- Fox News — Federal judge orders Trump administration to restore White House access
- Reuters — Judge blocks Trump’s White House media ban
- ABC News — Judge orders White House to restore press passes
- Associated Press — Trump targets CNN, MS NOW and Politico
- CBS News — Judge blocks Trump ban and restores White House access
