CNN, MS NOW, and Politico announced Monday that they are jointly suing the Trump administration, seeking to restore their journalists’ access to the White House and arguing that their exclusion violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects, among other rights, freedom of the press. The lawsuit is being filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., and CNN reports that emergency hearings could take place as early as this week.
The case began on Friday, September 18, when Donald Trump announced that he was barring the three outlets from the White House, citing reports he has described as “fake news” and accusing them of deliberately portraying his administration in a negative light.
During his first term, D. Trump revoked the credentials of two journalists, but they were restored following legal challenges.
The ban took effect on Saturday, when journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were prevented from entering the White House and their credentials were deactivated or revoked. On Monday, the administration went a step further with CNN, removing the network from its scheduled rotation as the television representative in the rotating White House press pool, the small group of journalists that closely covers the president’s activities on behalf of a broader group of news organizations. Press freedom groups and legal experts critical of the decision have described it as a form of “viewpoint discrimination.”
There is also precedent from Trump’s first term. The White House revoked the credentials of CNN’s Jim Acosta and Brian Karem, but both journalists separately challenged the decisions in court and had their credentials restored. In those cases, the courts placed particular emphasis on the need to follow established procedures before revoking a journalist’s press credentials, an issue expected to feature in the latest legal dispute as well.
Sources: New York Times, CNN
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