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 chackpoint found their hard passes deactivated.
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.
More to come.