Judge restores White House access for POLITICO, CNN and MS NOW
Por Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney — POLITICO – TOP Stories
A federal judge has ordered the White House to immediately restore the press credentials of three news organizations after President Donald Trump barred their reporters from the complex last week.
Early Thursday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly granted a temporary restraining order sought by POLITICO, CNN and MS NOW as part of a joint lawsuit filedchallenging the revocations. Citing the urgent needs of a “free press,” Kelly ordered the 78 journalists’ credentials returned for at least two weeks while further litigation plays out.
The Trump-appointed judge suggested that the national security grounds the administration claimed to justify the ban amounted to an after-the-fact justification of a decision the president appeared to have made over more mundane disagreements with the outlets’ reporting. Kelly called the disputed stories “routine.”
“The Court is skeptical — 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 in an eight-page ruling issued just before 1 a.m. Eastern.
“Nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns. 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,” the judge added.
The judge noted that the administration provided no support for its assertion that any of the disputed stories contained classified information or actually damaged national security and said some of the reporting was months or years old, belying claims the administration’s claims of urgency by the administration.
Kelly also said the White House appeared to have violated the constitutional due process rights of the journalists by failing to give them advance notice that concerns about their reporting could lead to cancellation of their passes.
Theodore Boutrous Jr., the lead attorney for the news organizations, welcomed Kelly’s order and the speed with which he issued it.
“This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law,” Boutrous said in a statement. “We greatly appreciate the court’s swift action.”
The judge’s ruling came after a hearing Wednesday where Boutrous argued that the ban violated the First Amendment, while a Justice Department lawyer contended that Trump should have the right to exclude reporters if they fail to abide by “widely known” journalism standards.
Kelly called the White House’s appeal to journalistic professionalism “so vague it hardly does the trick.”
Trump, who predicted the initial defeat, has signaled his intention to appeal. The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories
