Media outlets access to White House restored after a chaotic few hours

The White House said it has reinstated journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico after a federal judge deemed US President Donald Trump’s ban of the three news outlets likely unconstitutional and ordered their access immediately restored.

The midday reinstatement on Thursday came after a chaotic few hours when the journalists continued to be blocked from entering the White House grounds. That prompted the three news organisations to request an immediate hearing before US District Judge Tim Kelly, who issued his decision overnight.

US District Judge Timothy Kelly had ordered the White House overnight to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the three outlets’ access. He said they had met the legal thresholds to obtain a temporary restraining order, in effect for 14 days, and were likely to succeed in showing that their press passes were revoked without due process.

“This is a high bar, but Plaintiffs have met it,” he wrote.

But the journalists continued to be barred for a few hours on Thursday, the news organisations said.

This is the latest in a series of confrontations over press freedom that have played out over the past week in the courtroom and on the White House grounds. It comes during a heavy news cycle, with Chinese leader Xi Jinping visiting with Trump and world leaders gathered for the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump first announced he was banning the outlets on Friday, saying those news organisations “shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States”.

Only later did he argue that their reporting was a risk to national security. The outlets argued in a joint lawsuit that the ban was a blatant violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution because it singled them out for the content of their coverage.

The three outlets sued Trump and other members of his administration on Monday, saying the ban violated First Amendment protections for free speech and a free press, as well as their due process rights. A coalition of press freedom groups and dozens of news organisations, including the Reuters news agency and the Associated Press, later filed a legal brief supporting the three news outlets.

Kelly — who Trump nominated in 2017 and who ordered a CNN journalist’s access restored in a similar case in 2018 — said the government must have clear standards for conduct that would lead to revoking a press pass. He called the standard of objectionable reporting outlined in letters that the White House sent the outlets “so vague it hardly does the trick”.

The judge also made clear he did not buy the administration’s argument, in a court filing it made on Tuesday, that the news outlets’ reporting endangered national security — and noted that Trump himself had not used that argument in the beginning, focusing solely on what he called negative coverage.

“Nothing in the record … suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” he wrote.

The ruling came after Kelly heard arguments in an emergency hearing Wednesday. Temporary restraining orders are typically designed to preserve the status quo pending a closer review of the case by the court.

“This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law,” Theodore Boutrous Jr, an attorney for the outlets, said in an emailed statement. “We greatly appreciate the court’s swift action.”

But a few hours after the ruling, reporters from those outlets said they were not allowed to enter the White House.

The White House did not respond to emails from The Associated Press asking for comment on the order and whether it would let reporters back inside.

Press pool suspends coverage

The ban prompted other media outlets to take action in solidarity. The US network press pool — consisting of the five major networks, including CNN — has suspended coverage of Trump pool events pending further notice.

The ruling did not address that rotating pool. After the hearing on Wednesday, the networks continued to refuse to air footage of Trump without assurances that CNN would be permitted into the White House pool.

Journalists from Fox News, CBS and NBC were present but not shooting video at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where the president formally welcomed Xi.

Other television outlets whose crews were present, according to signs on their tripods and cameras, were NewsNation, Newsmax, Right Side Broadcasting Network, One America News Network and LindellTV.