FPF comments on White House's defiance of judge's media ban smackdown

Hours after Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., delivered a resounding defeat to President Trump early this morning, restraining his administration from barring CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House and holding that the ban is likely unconstitutional, the administration defied the order by continuing to deny access to the networks.

Kelly held that the press met the “high bar” to show that the ban likely violated the Fifth Amendment’s protections for due process. He also rejected the administration’s argument that “national security” concerns justified the ban, noting that the news stories the administration pointed to are “routine” and that there is no precedent for applying laws prohibiting disclosure of classified information to reporters.

But after Kelly’s ruling and in spite of the temporary restraining order entered by the court, Politico, CNN, and MSNOW reported today that some of their reporters were denied access to the White House and some also had their press credentials confiscated.
The following can be attributed to Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern:

“The administration was rightly given the back of the hand by Judge Kelly for claiming routine reports harm ‘national security,’ but court orders are just paper unless they’re enforced. Enough is enough. Government officials who continue to deny journalists’ access to the White House in defiance of Kelly’s order should be held in contempt.

“And it’s long past time for judges to start aggressively sanctioning DOJ lawyers when they make frivolous national security arguments to turn Trump’s petty grievances against the press into government policy. That way, we won’t get to the point where Secret Service agents are defying court orders to carry out the president’s authoritarian whims.

“The Pentagon Papers case famously rejected a prior restraint aimed at specific documents the government claimed posed national security risks, and Trump himself lost two cases in which he tried to similarly ban reporters in his first term. Anyone who argues ‘national security’ are magic words justifying banning three entire news outlets from the White House should be not just laughed out of court but sanctioned.

“Trump’s own announcement of the ban admitted it was about coverage he didn’t like. The reports the government cited are years old and one was even based on a briefing from the vice president. Trump beats up on the free press not because of national security but because he’s terrified for the public to see what he and his administration are up to in the people’s house behind closed doors, whether it’s letting classified tech go missing or almost starting a war based on an AI hallucination.

“Those are the stories you won’t see on Trump TV. They bolster national security by exposing real threats to the homeland — government malfeasance and incompetence. Everyone involved in this multipronged and apparently ongoing attack on the Constitution must be held accountable.”

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