Journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico said that they were allowed reentry to the White House days after being banned and hours after a federal judge ordered their credentials restored.
This followed a chaotic morning, in which journalists from all three outlets were turned away from the White House by the U.S. Secret Service, and some had their press credentials seized.
Lawyers for CNN, MS NOW and Politico requested an emergency hearing after they were again blocked from accessing the White House on Thursday despite a federal judge’s early-morning ruling ordering the government to restore their credentials.
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney for the media outlets, said that these denials and seizures amount to “non-compliance” with the judge’s ruling.
“Defendants have already repeatedly violated the Court’s Order,” he wrote in the filing.
In response, the government filed a declaration from White House press operations director Micah Stopperich outlining a timeline by which the White House had gone about restoring access. Stopperich said the White House began restoring badges at 7:10 a.m., and Secret Service said that badges were “turned back on” at 9:07 a.m.
But that timeline does not comport with what happened: Reporters did not regain entry until around 12 p.m.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, an appointee of President Donald Trump, issued a 14-day restraining order while the outlets’ legal challenge of the ban proceeds, ordering the White House to “return, reinstate, and restore” the journalists’ credentials. (Read the judge’s ruling here.)
A Politico reporter had his press pass confiscated by the Secret Service and was blocked from entering White House grounds, the outlet reported. CNN reported that some of its staff members, including reporter Betsy Klein and a photojournalist, were denied entry to the White House grounds about 6 a.m. Eastern time.
Politico’s leadership told employees in an email Thursday that the publication would take the issue to court if its employees remained blocked from the White House.
Klein said on air that the photojournalist’s pass was seized, though another producer was able to enter. She described the situation as “fluid” following the overnight ruling, noting that it was not yet business hours and that it “may take a little bit of time to process.”
Earlier this week, Trump suggested he would allow the three outlets back if Kelly ruled against the ban, but the president maintained he had a right to kick them out. “I’m talking about national security, and I think we have a right to clean out fake news,” he told reporters Tuesday.
MS NOW White House reporter Laura Barrón-López and a producer were denied access Thursday and had their passes confiscated, while another MS NOW producer was granted access, the outlet reported.
Barrón-López said on air that it was unclear whether the White House denied her access in defiance of the court order or to “some kind of incompetence or lag in the system.” Later, at noon, Barrón-López went on air to say that she was allowed back in the White House and that her credential was returned. CNN reported that Klein, its reporter, was allowed in around the same time. Politico reported at 12:28 that one of its reporters regained entry.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department declined to comment.
‘They’re fake news,’ Trump says
Reporters from the three outlets were first blocked from entering White House grounds Saturday following Trump’s announcement Friday that he would ban them, saying he disliked how they covered him. “They’re fake news,” he said. The three news organizations fought the ban in court, leading to an expedited hearing Wednesday.
The media outlets argue that their ban from the White House grounds violates the First Amendment and their Fifth Amendment due process rights. In a statement Thursday, Boutrous welcomed Kelly’s order. “This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law,” Boutrous said. “We greatly appreciate the court’s swift action.”
Kelly, a Trump appointee, wrote in his ruling that the media outlets have shown a “high likelihood of success” in their Fifth Amendment claim that their passes were revoked without due process. Other factors, including the public interest in a free press, also tipped the balance in their favor, he said.
“This is a high bar, but Plaintiffs have met it,” Kelly wrote.
The White House argued in legal filings that Trump’s action is lawful under the First Amendment and accused the outlets of threatening national security by “trafficking in verifiable falsehoods” and publishing sensitive or classified information.
No U.S. law explicitly makes it a crime for a journalist to obtain or publish classified information.
A video blackout
It remains to be seen whether the White House pool system — which splits video coverage of the president among five major networks — will resume to cover the visit of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, MS NOW White House reporter Akayla Gardner said. ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC said they would halt TV coverage of presidential events after the White House banned CNN, while other outlets, including The Washington Post earlier this week, temporarily refrained from publishing new photos of Trump in a show of support.
“This is a historic moment. We have President Xi coming here to Washington for a major state visit, and at this moment, we’re seeing tremendous solidarity among the news outlets,” Gardner said on air Thursday, adding, “I think we can assume that if the White House does comply with this order, that the pool potentially will be back in effect once again, and the public can get information the same way that they had before.”
Weijia Jiang, CBS senior White House correspondent and former president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said it was unclear whether pool coverage would resume. “The WH has not said whether CNN is back in the pool — a separate issue from the credentials,” she wrote on X on Thursday.
A skeptical judge
Kelly said in his ruling Thursday that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing the revocation of press credentials without due process was unconstitutional. He cited prominent cases decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, including a 1977 case concerning the Nation reporter Robert Sherrill and a 2020 case involving Playboy reporter Brian Karem, in which the court had established a pass could not be suspended without 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,” Kelly wrote.
He also took issue with the alleged violations outlined by the White House in letters to the media outlets. Kelly noted that the reports highlighted by the White House were “routine” and stretched back months or years. In some cases, the journalists behind the reports did not even hold White House passes, he added.
“The Court is skeptical — at least on this record — that Defendants’ interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by, the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes,” Kelly said.
Public interest arguments also favored the news organizations, Kelly said. While national security is a weighty argument for the White House, he said nothing in the defendants’ arguments show this was the motivation behind the reporter bans.
“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.
Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time that the ban was a result of the outlets’ “FAKE NEWS!”: “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America.”
In its letter to Politico, the White House also took issue with the outlet’s use of anonymous sources, among other critiques, citing a report that included a “senior administration official” speaking about the odds of a preliminary deal to end the conflict with Iran. But the source in the story spoke in an authorized call with reporters during which media outlets were directed to attribute information to a “senior administration official,” according to a recording of the call reviewed by The Washington Post.
Press advocacy groups and other news organizations have condemned the White House ban, and legal experts had expressed skepticism over whether it would hold up in court.
U.S. courts have consistently ruled that denying or restricting a journalist’s entry to the White House on the basis of their reporting violates the First Amendment, while failure to provide a clearly stated justification for any denial risks violating the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause.
In 2018, Kelly had also ordered the press credentials of then-CNN reporter Jim Acosta be restored after they were revoked by the first Trump administration, citing the lack of due process. The case was dropped soon after.
Ahead of the hearing Wednesday, the White House referred to a post by Trump on Truth Social in which he derided Kelly and suggested he would appeal the decision.
“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 most important Office anywhere in the World,” he said.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the media outlets and their White House reporters: MS NOW’s Gardner, CNN’s Klein and Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett. Trump, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, White House communications director Steven Cheung and Secret Service Director Sean M. Curran are named as defendants in their government capacities.
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