--- title: "The Judge Ordered Them In; the Secret Service Took Their Badges Anyway" description: "CNN, MS NOW and Politico won a court order at dawn, were turned away at the gate, and got back by lunchtime" author: "Sterling Vance" published: 2026-09-24T16:49:47Z modified: 2026-09-26T17:06:16Z url: https://rews.cc/a/barred-at-the-gate-trump-s-press-ban-meets-a-judge-s-order-t-9cfbf9 language: en tags: ["trump", "press", "politics", "law", "supreme-court", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # The Judge Ordered Them In; the Secret Service Took Their Badges Anyway *CNN, MS NOW and Politico won a court order at dawn, were turned away at the gate, and got back by lunchtime* By Sterling Vance · September 24, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/barred-at-the-gate-trump-s-press-ban-meets-a-judge-s-order-t-9cfbf9 There is a ritual to these things in Washington. A federal judge signs an order before breakfast; the lawyers send the triumphant emails; the reporters — laminated credentials at the ready, the sacred *hard pass* dangling — present themselves at the White House gates... and a man in a dark suit with an earpiece takes the pass away. That is Thursday morning, September 24, in summary: the dawn that the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the United States Secret Service looked each other in the eye, and the Secret Service blinked — but only afterward, at 9:55 a.m. “This morning, journalists from each of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico attempted to enter the White House and were turned away, and Secret Service agents confiscated the hard pass of journalists whose hard passes had not previously been confiscated,” the three outlets told the court in a filing that reads less like a legal document than a dispatch from a customs post. CNN reported that a reporter and a photojournalist were denied entry “despite multiple attempts,” even as one of its producers got in just after 6 a.m. Eastern. Politico said its reporter was denied and had credentials seized; a Secret Service agent, per Politico’s account, suggested the man might yet wangle a temporary day pass — the kind given to people who do *not* hold permanent-access hard passes — and, when informed that a federal court had ordered the reporter readmitted, replied there was nothing he could do. MS NOW relayed the same split-screen: one reporter and a producer bounced, another producer waved through. ## The judge Trump named, the name Trump calls All of it came hours after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly — note the irony, heralded onstage like a poi dog’s entrance — a judge *nominated by Donald Trump in 2017*, and the very same Kelly who in 2018 ordered Jim Acosta’s White House pass restored, had granted a temporary restraining order lasting 14 days. The ban, he wrote, “likely violated” the outlets’ “constitutional due process rights,” and the passes must come back “until further order of the court or the expiration of this temporary restraining order.” The three organizations, barred from the complex since Saturday on Trump’s Truth Social order citing their constant “‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” as the Business Insider account quotes it, had argued in their Monday suit that the move was a made-for-banishment spectacle aimed at the content of their coverage. > This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles Kelly bought the due-process half of the argument, and bought skepticism wholesale. The outlets had “shown a likelihood of success, at least on their Fifth Amendment procedural due process claim,” he found. As for the Justice Department’s insistence — filed Tuesday, arguing the outlets had “received adequate notice,” that “the President’s actions are lawful under the First Amendment,” and that national security was at stake — the judge raked it briskly. “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,” Kelly wrote. In the CBC/AP account of his order: “Nothing in the record... suggests that the revocation of plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns.” And the White House letters spelling out the offenses? Their standard was “so vague it hardly does the trick.” Ah, the letters! Dated September 22 — four days after the ban, and after reporters Betsy Klein, Cheyenne Haslett and Akayla Gardner had already been turned away at the gates — the White House Press Office’s missives cited stories on the war in Iran, Trump’s White House ballroom, sanctions on Russia, a Politico Playbook item on a Republican midterm convention in Dallas and an MS NOW report on U.S. munitions in the Iran conflict, per Bloomberg’s account of the DOJ filing. The prosecution, in other words, built its case retroactively, like a landlord who changes the locks and mails the eviction notice Thursday. “Suddenly it’s a national security case,” Ted Boutrous, the outlets’ lead lawyer, ribbed in Wednesday’s hearing; at the lectern opposite, DOJ attorney Michael Velchik held the federal line: “Access to the White House is a privilege, not a right.” Velchik noted that Trump had called ABC “the worst” yet never banned it. Boutrous’s comeback was that the President “keeps proving our point.” ## Turned away, then 9:55 a.m. Thursday, then: Boutrous alerted Kelly that reporters had been turned away *in the teeth of his order* and asked for an “immediate hearing” on the administration’s “non-compliance.” The judge gave the government until 12:30 p.m. Eastern. The White House arrived just under the wire with a position of pure serenity: access had been restored for all three outlets’ reporters as of 9:55 a.m., and the passes, Secret Service indicated, were available for pickup at the press gate around 9:45 a.m. CNN and MS NOW said their people began getting in; by afternoon, per the AP/CBC account, all three were back on the grounds — but not before the morning’s delay had set off, as CBC put it, speculation that an administration accused of defying courts in several cases had done it again before lunch. Trump, meanwhile, had already proclaimed his next move. He dismissed the challenge, signaled he regretted appointing Kelly in 2017, and vowed: “Almost without question and, as usual, we’ll go for appeal, because fake news people and publications that only write negatively, and who violate our national security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown ‘sources,’ shouldn’t be allowed access to the \[Oval Office\].” The hitch, as Kelly noted in his filing: “temporary restraining orders are generally unappealable.” What comes instead, over the 14 days, is expedited briefing on a preliminary injunction. Since that order landed, the White House has found a new venue for the squeeze, [keeping CNN off Air Force One](https://rews.cc/a/white-house-kicks-cnn-off-air-force-one-days-after-court-res-ca1f3e) while installing a friendlier network in the press seat. The union hall of American journalism — that den of mutually suspicious competitors — staged, for once, a group hug. When CNN, one of the five U.S. outlets rotating in the press pool, was bumped from covering Trump’s Monday trip to the U.N. General Assembly, the other major networks declined to replace its crew. ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC issued a rare joint statement: “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No Administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.” The New York Times and Washington Post said they would hold off publishing still photos from the White House pool; and on Wednesday 49 media organizations signed a legal brief arguing that stripping journalists of rights over “perceived editorial viewpoint... is impermissible in any type of forum, including the White House.” Boutrous called the ruling, in a statement to TIME, “a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law.” Context, for the scoreboard: the same court handled last year’s AP restriction, according to thenextweb.com, and the U.S. has slid to 64th on the RSF press-freedom index, its lowest ever. The outlets want their crews aboard for Xi Jinping’s state visit, where the host’s own press habits are a subject of world renown. And Trump’s wider litigation portfolio had a rough week too: an Iowa judge, Scott J. Beattie, dismissed his suit against the *Des Moines Register* and its former pollster over its 2024 election-coverage claims, warning such “faulty” claims can chill “others from reporting on and debating public affairs” — the White House says it will appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court. Still pending: a multibillion-dollar defamation suit against the BBC and one against the Wall Street Journal over an Epstein story. The briefs pile up. The presses roll. Somewhere a hard pass dangles from a lanyard, surrendered at dawn, reclaimed before lunch — the fragile little totem of a republic’s oldest quarrel. ## Sources - [White House 'Repeatedly Violated' Court Order to Return Press Access, Three Media Outlets Say](https://time.com/article/2026/09/24/judge-overturns-trump-white-house-media-ban-temporary-order-appeal/) — time.com - [POLITICO granted White House access after being denied earlier Thursday](https://www.businessinsider.com/politico-granted-white-house-access-after-being-denied-earlier-thursday-2026-9) — Business Insider - [POLITICO, CNN and MS NOW barred from White House despite court ruling](https://www.businessinsider.com/politico-reporter-denied-white-house-access-despite-court-order-2026-9) — Business Insider - [White House reporters from outlets banned by Trump regain access after judge's order](https://cbc.ca/news/world/judge-blocks-trumps-white-house-media-ban-9.7356339) — cbc.ca - [DOJ defends Trump’s White House ban on CNN, Politico and MS NOW](https://thenextweb.com/news/white-house-press-ban-cnn-politico-ms-now) — thenextweb.com