A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to reinstate the White House press passes of CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists and crews “immediately.” The temporary restraining order will remain in effect for 14 days unless otherwise ordered by the court.
In his order, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly said the media outlets had met the legal thresholds to obtain a temporary restraining order, The Associated Press reported. He said they were likely to succeed in showing that their White House “hard pass” press passes were revoked without due process.
The three news outlets sued President Donald Trump in the case filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Cable News Networks, Inc. v. Trump, after their credentials were revoked on Sept. 18.
Read the restraining order here.
Kelly, a Trump appointee, also rejected, for now, the administration’s argument that revoking the outlets’ press credentials was necessary to protect national security, The New York Times reported.
“For one thing, nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” Kelly wrote. “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.”
Trump has said he would appeal the ruling.
Kelly’s ruling early Thursday temporarily halts events that began Friday, when the president wrote in a Truth Social post that he was banning the news outlets from the White House grounds because of their reporting of what he called “fake news,” the Times reported.
The judge said the government must have clear standards for conduct that would lead to revoking a press pass, the AP reported. He called the standard of objectionable reporting outlined in the letters that the White House sent the outlets “so vague it hardly does the trick.”
On Saturday, journalists for CNN, MS NOW and Politico were denied access to the White House grounds, the Times reported. The three outlets filed their lawsuit on Monday, arguing that the president’s ban violated their First Amendment rights.
Other media outlets responded by scaling back their routine coverage of presidential events in an act of solidarity with CNN, MS NOW and Politico, according to the Times.
“This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law. We greatly appreciate the court’s swift action,” Theodore Boutrous, an attorney representing the media companies, told CNN.
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