On Thursday, Judge Timothy J. Kelly ordered the Trump administration to restore White House access to journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
In his ruling, he found that barring the news outlets without due process likely amounted to “constitutional harm” that had an impact on the public, as well, “given the importance of the free press.”
Thursday’s ruling made Judge Kelly the latest jurist appointed to the federal bench by President Trump during his first term who has issued a high-profile ruling blocking one of Mr. Trump’s second-term policies.
It was not the first time that Judge Kelly had signaled his independence from Mr. Trump’s preferences. In a similar case from 2018, when Judge Kelly had been on the bench for a little more than a year, he ordered the administration to restore press credentials to Jim Acosta, then CNN’s chief White House correspondent.
Earlier this year, he also called the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol “a perilous event” that jeopardized “the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next.” He reluctantly dismissed a criminal case against five far-right extremists who had all been convicted of charges stemming from the attack, only to have their sentences pardoned or commuted by Mr. Trump. In that ruling, Judge Kelly questioned whether Mr. Trump’s views about prosecuting Jan. 6 rioters were “based on fact or fiction.”
In 2017, when Judge Kelly was appointed by Mr. Trump to the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, he already had a record of public service. He had served for a decade in the Justice Department under both Democratic and Republican presidents. As a federal prosecutor, he helped assemble a criminal case against Jeffrey A. Sterling, a former C.I.A. officer convicted in 2015 of espionage on charges that he told a reporter for The New York Times about a secret effort to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.
He also had strong conservative credentials. He clerked in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for a judge appointed by President George H.W. Bush. He joined the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, in 2009 and, according to written testimony he submitted to the Senate, has attended at least four of its annual conventions.
Beginning in 2013, Judge Kelly worked as counsel to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who went on to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including when Judge Kelly was confirmed by a 94-to-2 vote. At Judge Kelly’s confirmation hearing, Mr. Grassley called him a “very talented attorney,” praising his “vast legal experience” and “thoughtful approach.”
When asked by a Democratic senator whether he agreed with Mr. Trump’s false claim that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election, Judge Kelly declined to answer, citing rules that restrict judges from engaging in “political activity.”
A longtime resident of Washington, Judge Kelly graduated from Georgetown University Law Center before working for Arnold and Porter, a storied Beltway law firm. According to his official court biography, he spent several months of his time there on loan to Legal Aid Society, where he represented low-income Washington residents in matters like landlord-tenant and family disputes.
In 2003, he wrote a letter to the editor of Newsweek reminding readers that $100 million in cash reported to have been found with two sons of Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi dictator, was “the property of the Iraqi people, from whom it was stolen.”
Mr. Trump has repeatedly expressed anger when his picks for federal judgeships and Supreme Court seats at times rule against him. Other trial-court judges chosen by Mr. Trump have blocked his efforts to send the National Guard into Portland, Ore., constrain legal assistance for detained immigrants and summarily deport Venezuelans using an obscure wartime law.
But in at least one instance, in 2017, Judge Kelly issued a major decision supporting Mr. Trump’s policies, when he ruled that Mr. Trump’s pick to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as acting director could remain in place. The bureau’s deputy director, a career civil servant, had sued, claiming that she had the legal right to lead the agency.
The order restoring White House access to CNN, MS NOW and Politico is temporary and expires after 14 days. Judge Kelly could choose to issue a more lasting ruling, which the government could then appeal.
The post Who Is the Trump-Appointed Judge Who Blocked the White House Media Ban? appeared first on New York Times.
