Reporters from all three outlets that a court ordered the Trump administration to reinstate press access for have said they are still being banned from the White House.
Politico, CNN, and MS Now reporters have said they were denied access when they attempted to enter the White House on Thursday morning.
CNN said that there was no reason provided for the refusal of its reporter, Betsy Klein, but added that a producer was granted access to the White House grounds after 6 a.m.
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President Donald Trump announced on social media last week that he was banning White House access to Politico, CNN, and MS Now reporters, accusing them of publishing “fiction and lies.” On Saturday, the outlets reported that their press passes no longer granted them access to the White House grounds.
The outlets subsequently sued on First Amendment grounds. Early Thursday morning, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, temporarily halted Trump’s ban, calling it unconstitutional. Kelly ordered the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the journalists’ press credentials.
“This is a high bar, but Plaintiffs have met it,” Kelly wrote in his ruling.
The judge also cast doubt on Trump’s claim that the passes were revoked over national security concerns.
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“The Court is skeptical–at least on this record–that Defendants’ interests in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by, the revocation of Plaintiff’s hard passes,” he wrote, adding that Trump’s comments about the ban focused on disagreeing with the coverage itself rather than national security.
The White House TV pool has suspended coverage of Trump’s events this week, and it is not yet clear if it will reinstate coverage of the US-China state visit. Trump will be holding events with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
