Trump-Appointed Judge Orders White House to Restore CNN, MS NOW, Politico Access
President Donald Trump’s ban barring CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House was overturned in the overnight hours Thursday by a judge he appointed in his first term.
The temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly came after the outlets filed an emergency suit on Monday. The ruling lasts for two weeks, The Hill reported.
However, Kelly said in his ruling that the three left-leaning outlets “have shown a likelihood of success, at least on their Fifth Amendment procedural due process claim.”
“Defendants do not dispute that Plaintiffs did not receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before their hard passes were revoked,” Kelly wrote in his ruling.
While Kelly was appointed by Trump in 2017, the ruling was not unexpected; he was the same judge who ruled in favor of CNN’s Jim Acosta in 2018 when his White House press pass was revoked, and ruled on largely the same grounds.
Trump had banned the three networks last week, saying in a post on Truth Social that they were subsequently banned “from the White House as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!
“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America,” Trump added.
Earlier this week, after the suit was announced — along with the fact that the plaintiffs had drawn Kelly, the same judge that ruled in favor of Acosta — Trump lamented the fact, but seemed more determined to fight whatever ruling came down than he was in 2018.
“They have drawn a great Judge, for them, a man who ruled in favor of Jim Acosta, who now seems to have disappeared from the Planet,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“The Judge’s name is Tim Kelly, and he was, sadly, appointed by ‘TRUMP.’ In other words, almost without question and, as usual, we’ll go for appeal because Fake News people and publications that only write negatively, and who violate our National Security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown ‘sources,’ shouldn’t be allowed access to the most important Office anywhere in the World.
“FAKE NEWS IS A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY, and I will do whatever is necessary to make sure that the U.S.A. thrives. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” he added.
However, Kelly insisted in his ruling that he was bound by a 1977 decision on the matter from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
In that case, Sherill v. Knight, the court ruled that the denial of the press pass to a Washington correspondent for the hard-left magazine The Nation had his constitutional rights violated when the White House denied his press pass based on a background investigation without giving him an opportunity to rebut.
The Trump administration had argued the case, along with similar cases decided by the court, should be overturned.
“Maybe — but this Court is bound by D.C. Circuit precedent, full stop,” Kelly wrote in his ruling. He added that, although the White House had argued that the three outlets had breached national security with their reporting, the incidents they cited were “routine.”
Kelly wrote that “the Court is skeptical — at least on this record — that Defendants’ interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by, the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes.”
