A federal judge in Washington signaled on Thursday that he was likely to extend his order restoring White House access to Politico, CNN and MS NOW, the three outlets President Trump has barred, Politico reported.
At the hearing, Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, called the Justice Department’s national security defense “an uphill climb,” noting that Mr. Trump himself has said, in interviews and on social media, that he banished the outlets over “negative” stories about him. “That’s probably the biggest hurdle you all have,” Judge Kelly told the government’s lawyer.
Judge Kelly issued a two-week restraining order last month that lifted the ban, finding that the White House had probably violated the outlets’ due process rights by stripping their credentials with no notice and no identifiable standards to follow. He later extended the order through Tuesday, and he is now weighing a longer injunction that could remain in place through months of litigation. The outlets asked for the longer order late last month.
Theodore Boutrous Jr., a lawyer for the news organizations, pressed a second argument: that the ban violates the First Amendment. A recent Time magazine interview, he said, “amounts to a confession” that the president pulled the reporters’ passes because he considered their stories too negative. “That interview really is the coup de grace,” Mr. Boutrous said, adding that Attorney General Todd Blanche had put it down to the outlets’ “one-sided reporting.”
The government’s lawyer, Michael Velchik, argued that the outlets had in fact received due process, but after the ban took effect. He cited unsigned letters from the White House press office, delivered after the lawsuit was filed, that flagged a handful of stories as “misinformation” or “national security” risks. The outlets “defaulted,” he said, by failing to respond — letters he repeatedly attributed to Mr. Trump, though they were unsigned and the president has never mentioned them publicly.
Mr. Boutrous called that “a sham process,” with no evidence that Mr. Trump had approved the letters or even knew of them.
Mr. Velchik also argued that the president deserves wider latitude than the federal agencies that ordinarily decide which reporters get access. “The White House is a sacred place,” he said.
Judge Kelly posed a hypothetical: could the president bar an outlet for stories shown to be false? Mr. Boutrous said no. Mr. Velchik offered a looser answer: “From our perspective, it’s within the discretion of the president.”
Judge Kelly said long-standing decisions forbid barring journalists from the White House over the content of their reporting, and require that any revocation rest on clear standards and consequences laid out in advance. The Justice Department disagrees with those rulings, he said, but he was bound to follow them.
The hearing drew media executives, reporters and First Amendment lawyers to the federal courthouse, where Judge Kelly remarked on how outnumbered the government’s lone attorney was. He did not rule from the bench. His current order expires on Tuesday.