Judge Rules Trump Administration Can’t Resume Ban On CNN, MS NOW & Politico From White House Grounds

A federal judge prohibited the Trump administration from banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House grounds. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, wrote in his opinion that the news outlets “are likely to succeed not only on their due process claim, but also on their two First Amendment claims.” But he added that “no one should interpret the Court’s decision to suggest that President Trump’s concerns about accuracy and fairness in the media’s reporting are unfounded, or that the government is powerless when its true aim is to protect national security when classified information is unlawfully disclosed.” Trump announced on Sept. 18 that he was barring the three outlets access to White House grounds, complaining that they were “‘reporting’ fake news.”. A day later, their reporters who tried to enter the security checkpoint found their hard passes deactivated. Watch on Deadline The news outlets sued, and Kelly issued a temporary restraining order halting Trump’s restriction on the outlets, something that forced the White House to restore the hard passes to dozens of reporters and other staffers. That TRO expired on Tuesday; the preliminary injunction means that the White House cannot enforce Trump’s ban in the long term, either until a trial or an appeal. In defending the ban, the government cited national security reasons, although DOJ attorneys also argued that the news organizations did not meet “minimum requirements of professionalism.” While the DOJ pointed to stories published or aired that had to do with national security, they also cited as an example an MS NOW report that Trump aides considered an option of adding the president’s name to Ford’s Theatre. Trump later denied it. In his 26-page opinion, Kelly cited D.C. Circuit precedents in that reporters had a right to due process before their hard pass is revoked. “To put it mildly, [the news outlets] ikely did not receive notice either of the conduct that would subject them to revocation of their hard passes, or of the magnitude of the revocation sanction itself,” the judge wrote. He noted that some of the stories cited by the White House were published and then their authors had their hard passes renewed earlier this year, only to have them revoked when Trump imposed his sweeping ban. The judge also weighed in on the news outlets’ claim that Trump was engaging in retaliation in violation of the First Amendment. “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. After explaining that he excluded Plaintiffs from the White House because they ‘purposely write negative news . . . to try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration,’ President Trump remarked that he is prepared to take ‘the ban . . . as far as you can,’ but that he would “love it” if they “could straighten themselves out.” More to come.