A US federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore White House press access for CNN, MS NOW and Politico after their credentials were revoked.
The Trump administration must immediately reinstate White House access for CNN, MS NOW and Politico, a US federal judge ordered early Thursday, after their reporters were banned from the premises last week.
President Donald Trump barred the outlets from the White House on Friday as punishment for distributing what he branded as “fake news” and “fiction and lies.”
The Ruling
CNN, MS NOW and Politico filed a joint lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order against the ban, arguing it violated the First Amendment’s protection of a free press. US District Judge Timothy Kelly granted that request, finding that the revocation of the outlets’ hard-pass press credentials was carried out without “constitutionally adequate due process.”
“The ‘general rule’ is that ‘individuals must receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before the Government deprives them’ of a constitutionally protected interest,” Kelly wrote, citing case law. He noted that the Trump administration had not given reporters an opportunity to appeal the decision until after their passes were already confiscated.
Kelly also rejected the administration’s stated justification for the ban. Trump’s lawyers had argued the outlets’ access was revoked over national security concerns tied to their past reporting, but the judge found little support for that claim in the record.
“Nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” Kelly wrote, adding that this was not, in any event, the reason Trump himself gave when he announced the ban, instead pointing to the outlets’ alleged lack of truthfulness.
The judge also pointed to a prior D.C. Circuit Court ruling, also involving Trump, establishing that revoking a reporter’s hard pass requires the government to first publish clear standards of conduct that could lead to such action. Kelly found no evidence of “formally articulated standards” in this case, writing that the one standard the administration did appear to offer, reflected in letters sent to the outlets, “is so vague it hardly does the trick.”
“This is a high bar, but Plaintiffs have met it,” Kelly wrote of the standard required to obtain a temporary restraining order.
The order requires White House officials to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the three outlets’ credentials, and will remain in effect for 14 days while the broader legal case proceeds. The judge set out a plan for both sides to continue submitting arguments and evidence during that period. His decision is not immediately subject to appeal.
Justice Department lawyers had argued that White House press access is a privilege rather than a right, defending the president’s authority to determine who receives it. A senior White House official had separately defended the move to NBC News earlier in the week.
Timing and Backdrop
The ruling landed just hours before Trump was set to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping to Washington, and means the barred journalists should now be able to return to work at the White House complex.
President Trump has long attacked media outlets that have aired critical coverage of his campaigns and administrations, repeatedly describing the press as the “enemy of the people.” Notably, Judge Kelly, a Trump appointee also ordered the White House to restore CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press credentials in 2018, after his hard pass was revoked following a contentious news conference exchange with the president.
The ban and subsequent ruling also come amid wider tension over White House press access: television pool members Fox News Media, ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News announced earlier this week that they had agreed to suspend their pooled coverage of the president.
The dispute unfolds at a moment when Trump’s approval ratings are at record lows, his Republican Party faces the risk of losing control of Congress in November’s midterm elections, and the US-Iran war continues with no clear end in sight.
