CNN has threatened to take additional legal action against the government if President Donald Trump does not allow the network and its journalists to travel on Air Force One.
The network, along with MS NOW and Politico, won a preliminary injunction in federal court last week, a blow to Trump’s effort to bar the outlets from the White House grounds.
But the harm hasn’t ceased, said Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a partner at the law firm Gibson Dunn representing CNN.
In a Monday letter to Justice Department attorney Michael K. Velchik, Boutrous wrote that CNN has continuously been blocked from flying aboard the president’s plane, which has prevented it from completing its duties for the rotational television pool.
If they’re not allowed back on the plane, CNN “will have no choice but to return to the court to defend its rights, and it is prepared to fight as long as is necessary to secure them,” Boutrous wrote.
The White House shared a statement standing by the president’s action: “No person and no journalist have a constitutional right to access to the President’s Oval Office, Air Force One, or other sensitive and private facilities. When publications lie, fabricate, and ignore the truth, proximity matters less and they can write their fiction from outside of these secure facilities.”
The Washington Post first reported on Sept. 25 that the White House blocked CNN from flying on Air Force One for a trip the next day to Knoxville, Tennessee.
The decision interrupted planned coverage of Trump by five networks that share responsibility for keeping cameras on the president at all times: ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC. Since CNN has been banned from trips that require traveling on Air Force One with the president, the other networks have maintained a policy of deciding on a case-by-case basis whether to fill in for CNN when its turn comes up in the rotation.
Boutrous said that CNN has been blocked “no fewer than four times to date.” Politico has also been barred from riding aboard Air Force One, preventing it from serving as the designated print pooler earlier this month, but Boutrous’s letter did not address the outlet’s circumstances.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
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