The White House has allowed journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico to enter the grounds after barring them from access and revoking credentials.
The reinstatement comes after the outlets sought an emergency court hearing after once again being denied access to the White House on Thursday morning — this time in violation of a federal judge’s order commanding the administration to restore the three outlets’ press credentials.
Last week, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he was “immediately” banning the three outlets from the White House press pool because he did not like the manner in which they covered him — an apparent violation of the First Amendment, which the president has repeatedly claimed he will defend.
Trump didn’t help his case by openly referring to their expulsion as “the ban on the free press,” and U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ruled early Thursday morning that the 78 journalists affected by the ban should have their credentials returned, immediately.
“The Court is sceptical — at least on this record — that Defendants’ interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by, the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes,” Kelly wrote of the administration’s retroactive claims that the outlets reporting posed a national security risk. “Defendants offer little to back up their asserted national security interest to justify revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes.”
The temporary restraining order granted that the media organisations were likely to succeed in their lawsuit against the administration, but so far, Trump and White House staff have ignored Kelly’s order. Reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were blocked from entering the White House grounds on Thursday, and the Secret Service continued revoking and seizing press passes from journalists who still had them.
So it’s went back to court.
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“Time is of the essence,” the joint filing submitted Thursday read. “CNN is scheduled to be the television pool this evening for President Xi Jinping’s visit to the White House.”
Judge Kelly responded with a demand that the Trump administration respond to the outlet’s notice of non-compliance by 12:30 p.m. this afternoon. Shortly after noon local time, the three outlets reported that their staff had been allowed back onto White House grounds.
The Trump administration claimed that White House staff had dropped off the re-activated press passes at the press entry gate around 9:55 a.m., an assertion contradicted by accounts from reporters present in and around the White House.
The outlets are back in the White House, but the future of free and fair access to the administration — as required by the Constitution — remains in question.
From Rolling Stone US
