A federal judge ordered the White House on Tuesday to continue allowing journalists from CNN, MS Now and Politico to access the building as the media coalition’s lawsuit against the Trump administration plays out.
Timothy Kelly, a district court judge, had on ۲۴ September granted a ۱۴-day reprieve for the news organizations, which six days earlier had been banned by the president in an extraordinary move from entering the White House grounds “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS”.
“Defendants (except for President Trump) and their agents, representatives, and all persons or entities acting in concert with them, shall not execute, implement, or enforce the September ۱۸, ۲۰۲۶, decision to revoke the White House ‘hard pass’ press credentials held by employees of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO, thereby maintaining the status quo since the Court’s entry of a temporary restraining order on September ۲۴, ۲۰۲۶,” the judge wrote in granting a preliminary injunction requested by the plaintiffs.
The organizations filed a lawsuit on ۲۱ September seeking to overturn the ban as a violation of their rights under the US constitution. But that temporary restraining order expired on Tuesday, bringing the media companies into court late last week to ask for a preliminary injunction that would lift the ban during the duration of the lawsuit, which could take months.
During arguments at the E Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, Kelly seemed inclined to lift the ban indefinitely, telling a lawyer for the federal government that his side had “a notice problem” that was “probably the biggest hurdle” they had to overcome.
The Trump White House gave no advance notice to the media companies affected to say that they were at risk of losing their press badges, which the news organizations have said are essential to their ability to cover the administration. While the White House sent letters to the media companies informing them of the ban, they did so post-hoc, after building access had already been cut off, in violation of binding court precedent.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Judge Kelly wrote that the plaintiffs “are likely to succeed not only on their due process claim, but also on their two First Amendment claims”. While access to the White House is not guaranteed, court precedent dictates that once it is provided to journalists, it cannot be taken away for editorial or viewpoint-based reasons.
During arguments for a preliminary injunction on ۸ October, media lawyer Theodore J Boutrous told the judge that Trump had offered a “confession” – in a Time magazine interview last week – that he was banning the media companies explicitly because of the content of their reporting, not because of any other considerations, such as national security.
“The case has gotten stronger for the plaintiffs thanks to President Trump,” Boutrous told the judge.
The judge seemed to agree. “President Trump’s own comments suggest that he intended the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes to alter their reporting on him, bolstering the case that his action here is sufficient to deter a reporter of ordinary firmness from reporting in the same way she had before,” he wrote.
Although the White House has largely adhered to the judge’s prior ruling restoring access on a temporary basis, journalists for CNN and Politico have on occasion been prevented from performing “pool duty” – covering the daily activities of the president – because the administration has interpreted the judge’s temporary restraining order to solely require access to the White House complex, not smaller spaces like Air Force One or the Oval Office.
The judge required the media plaintiffs to post a bond of $۱.
In a statement, Boutrous said of the judge’s ruling: “When the President issued his ‘ban on the free press,’ he blatantly and explicitly violated due process and the First Amendment. Since then, the President has repeatedly, candidly, and consistently admitted in public that he banned our clients from the White House to punish reporting he doesn’t like and to try to force journalists to cover him in ways he prefers.”
The court, he added, “was right to enjoin the White House from enforcing this ‘unconstitutional ban on the free press’ for the foreseeable future”.
