A federal judge said Thursday that the Trump administration’s national security defense of its White House ban on three news outlets is undercut by the president’s own words, according to Politico.
“That’s an uphill climb,” U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly said of the Justice Department’s effort to justify banning Politico, CNN and MS NOW on national security grounds. He pointed out that Trump has publicly said the ban was about his dislike of the outlets’ coverage.
Kelly, whom President Donald Trump appointed, is deciding whether to issue a longer preliminary injunction that would keep the outlets’ access in place while the case continues, which could take months.
Politico reported that the judge seemed most troubled that the outlets got no due process before the ban, though he is also considering First Amendment concerns.
Kelly has already blocked the ban once. Last month he issued a two-week temporary restraining order, later extended through Tuesday, and wrote that he was “skeptical, at least on this record,” that national security was the real reason the outlets’ passes were revoked.
Even after that order, reporters from all three outlets were turned away at Secret Service checkpoints on the day Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state visit.
The outlets’ lawyers have used Trump’s public statements against him. Right after the ban, Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at the United Nations, “You shouldn’t be here.” The lawyers added that remark to the court record.
The White House has stood by the ban, and deputy press secretary Taylor Rogers called it “holding the fake news accountable.”
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