CNN, MS NOW and Politico have strengthened their legal challenge against the White House, accusing the administration of defying court orders by continuing to exclude their reporters from the press pool covering Donald Trump in the Oval Office and on Air Force One.
The organisations say the restrictions amount to retaliation for coverage the president dislikes and breach their constitutional rights. Their latest filing asks a US court to make earlier orders protecting their access permanent.
Theodore J Boutrous Jr, representing the three outlets, said reporters were still being barred from “the very locations that the president most frequently engages with the press”.
The dispute centres on whether the president can remove news organisations from the rotating press pool because of the content of their reporting. CNN, MS NOW and Politico argue that such action constitutes viewpoint discrimination, which is prohibited by the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
They wrote in their filing: “Every news organization now faces the risk of similar punishment for coverage the President deems insufficiently favorable, and the public is deprived of current and complete information about its government.”
Trump has maintained that he is not obliged to allow outlets whose reporting he dislikes on to White House grounds, Air Force One or other areas. The White House had not responded to the amended lawsuit by Thursday morning.
The filing follows a ruling roughly two weeks earlier by US District Judge Timothy Kelly, who said the outlets were likely to succeed in their case. He expanded an earlier temporary decision that found the administration had violated their Fifth Amendment right to due process.
On October 13, Kelly also ruled in favour of the organisations’ argument that the ban infringed their First Amendment rights. He rejected the administration’s claim that the restrictions were driven by policy considerations, including national security, finding instead that they stemmed from Trump’s stated view that the outlets’ reporting was inaccurate and biased.
“Simply put,” Kelly wrote, “That is unlawful viewpoint discrimination.”
