Judge Blocks White House Press Ban; White House Spends Thursday Testing How Much Of The Court Order It Can Violate

from the petty-censorial-tyrants dept

On Monday we wrote about Donald Trump’s direct attack on the First Amendment and the free press by banning reporters from the White House. As we expected, a judge on Thursday morning issued a Temporary Restraining Order, blocking the White House from continuing this unconstitutional action, though (as happened the last time Trump tried this) the court relied on Fifth Amendment due process rather than reaching the First Amendment question.

Plaintiffs are also likely to succeed in showing that their hard passes were revoked without constitutionally adequate due process. The “general rule” is that “individuals must receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before the Government deprives them” of a constitutionally protected interest…. Indeed, the Supreme Court has “described the root requirement of the Due Process Clause as being that an individual be given an opportunity for a hearing before he is deprived of any significant property interest.” Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 542 (1985) (citation omitted). Karem also holds that, because of the substantial interests at stake, before the Government can revoke the White House-issued hard pass of a reporter it must promulgate rules or standards governing the conduct that would lead to such revocation. See 960 F.3d at 665. And the reporter must “receive fair notice not only of the conduct that would subject him to punishment, but also of the magnitude of the sanction that the White House might impose.”

Trump’s favorite trick of declaring “national security” as an excuse to do whatever the hell he wants doesn’t work here either:

Still, on this record, Defendants offer little to back up their asserted national security interest to justify revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes. So this interest does not tilt these factors in their favor, especially given that Plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits.

For one thing, 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.3 And even the justifications provided to Plaintiffs after this case was filed are ambiguous about the true purpose of the revocations: while Defendants’ letters to Plaintiffs mention national security concerns, they purport to identify reporting that “threatened national security and/or spread falsehoods,” leaving open the possibility that all the stories fall into the later bucket, rather than the former.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the Trump presidency if his White House didn’t start out by ignoring the TRO. According to Politico (one of the banned outlets):

A POLITICO reporter was denied access to the White House Thursday and his press credentials confiscated after a judge ordered the Trump administration overnight to immediately restore access for news organizations that President Donald Trump banned from the complex last week.

MS NOW and CNN said their reporters were also denied entry. The three outlets have been barred from the White House since Saturday, following an order from Trump to do so “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!”

And so, the news orgs rushed back to court to point out that the White House was violating the TRO, which judges generally don’t take kindly to:

Early this morning the Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order directing “that Defendants (except for President Trump) and their agents, representatives, and all persons or entities acting in concert with them shall immediately return, reinstate, and restore the White House ‘hard pass’ press credentials held by employees of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO that were revoked on or about September 18, 2026.” Dkt. 24 (the “Order”). This morning journalists from each of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO attempted to enter the White House and were turned away. A Secret Service agent confiscated the hard pass of journalists from all three organizations. And when Plaintiff Betsy Klein, whose hard pass was confiscated on Saturday, September 19, requested to have her hard pass returned, her request was denied and she was refused access to the White House complex.

The judge ordered the White House to respond to the non-compliance notice by 12:30pm, and quickly received a declaration from Micah Stopperich, the Director of White House Press Operations, that the passes had been restored as of 9:07am, and that previously confiscated badges had been dropped at the entry gate to return to the journalists they had been taken from. Yet reporters say they were still being turned away until around noon, well after that supposed 9:07am restoration. They eventually regained some access to the White House.

But hours later, journalists from two of the same outlets were turned away from the arrival ceremony for Trump’s state dinner with Xi Jinping. As MS NOW itself reported:

Hours after regaining access, MS NOW White House reporter Laura Barrón-López was denied entry Thursday evening to the arrival ceremony on the portico ahead of the White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping. MS NOW had requested credentials for the event but never received a response. A CNN producer and correspondent were also denied access. When Barrón-López asked why she was being turned away, a White House staffer told her to “talk to Steven,” seemingly referring to White House communications director Steven Cheung.

According to CNN, the White House told them that CNN could not send a reporter to cover Xi’s arrival, only a photojournalist and an audio technician. The White House will surely argue that credentials for a specific event aren’t the same as the hard passes covered by the TRO. But blocking the reporters while allowing only CNN’s camera crew (a restriction not imposed on any other network) is exactly the kind of petty gamesmanship that the pending preliminary injunction briefing will have to deal with.

It’s unclear how the White House thinks any of this helps. It’s unconstitutional, and it makes the administration look petty: An administration that insists it’s the champion of free speech can’t even manage to let reporters in the door after a judge orders it to.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, donald trump, free press, free press ban, free speech, journalism, steven cheung, white house, white house ban

Companies: cnn, msnow, politico