CNN, MS NOW and Politico are headed to court to challenge the constitutionality of President Trump’s order to ban the three news organizations from the White House.
The three outlets filed a lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. asking for a temporary restraining order that restores their access immediately while the case is heard.
“This morning we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports and publishes,” CNN, MS NOW and Politico said in a statement. “Without notice or due process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to indpendent journalism free from government interference.”
The lawsuit against the Trump Administration will allege that the ban violates the 1st Amendment by retaliating against protected newsgathering as punishment for unfavorable coverage, as well as blocking reporters from a “nonpublic forum” for unlawful reasons.
The suit notes precedent is a case from 1977 that ruled the White House cannot arbitrarily restrict press credentials for reporters on grounds that there’s retaliation for viewpoint discrimination.
Trump announced the ban Friday in a Truth Social post, describing CNN, MS NOW and Politico as “fake news.” He did not cite any specific story that prompted the action, claiming the outlets have long been unfair to him and never provide any positive coverage.
Trump was asked Friday how his ban will hold up in court.
“I don’t think a court should allow fake news to be written day after day after day,” he said. “I think that somebody has a right to keep them away if they’re going to write false stories all the time.”
Trump’s asserts that the ban is the result of unhappiness with the coverage he receives from the three outlets. Trump’s statements are likely to be used against him in court.
The ban has already raised questions on how the public will be able to monitor the president’s activities. CNN was scheduled to provide the video feed of Trump’s Monday trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. The pool feed, as it’s called, provides video to all other press outlets.
The other networks in the pool — CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox News — stood in solidarity with CNN and did not step in to provide coverage.
“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” the other pool members said in a statement. “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”
On Saturday, journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were barred from entering White House grounds as they learned their press credentials were no longer valid. Some were asked to hand them over to Secret Service.
Trump has tried twice to deny news organizations White House access. In 2018 during his first term, the White House tried to ban journalist Jim Acosta, then working for CNN, but a court ordered that his press credential be resinstated.
Last year, the Trump White House issued a ban on the Associated Press when the news organization refused to recognize the president’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico by executive order. A federal judge ordered that the AP’s access to the White House be restored on the grounds that the government cannot punish a journalistic outlet over the content of its speech.
A divided appeals court panel later paused that ruling for the Oval Office, Air Force One and other restricted spaces, allowing the White House to keep the AP out of them while the case proceeds.
Trump has railed against outlets that he considers unfriendly to his administration, calling for the Federal Communications Commission to pull the TV station licenses of the broadcast networks. He has also asked the FCC to take action against individual journalists who irk him, the last being “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has tried to act on Trump’s behalf by calling for a review of ABC’s TV licenses, which the Walt Disney Co.-owned network is challenging in court.
“This is about more than the rights of journalists. It is about the right of the American people to receive a full and independent account of the activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation’s highest office,” Heinrich said in a statement.
Trump has also lashed out at individual reporters in person or over social media, sometimes in strikingly personal terms — insulting them in briefings, or in his recent speech at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner.
Trump’s press attacks have spread to other parts of his administration. The Department of Defense tried to restrict journalist access to the Pentagon.
The department also recently fired three journalists at the military’s newspaper Stars and Stripes for insubordination after they appeared in a CBS News report on how the Trump administration has tried to restrict their reporting.
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