MS NOW, CNN and Politico said they are suing the federal government following President Donald Trump’s decision to bar the three news organizations from conducting press interviews at the White House, the latest breakdown in relations between the president and national media.
“This morning, we notified the administration that we will file a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not determine what the media reports or publishes,” the three news organizations said in a statement. “Without notice or process, the White House revoked the journalistic credentials of our reporters because it objected to our reporting. If left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the rights of the public government.”
The three news companies filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “This is the most direct attack on the First Amendment,” they claimed in a court filing on Monday.
MS NOW, CNN and Politico sought an order preventing officials from taking further action to ban their staff from reporting at the White House and called for the immediate reinstatement of credentials required to enter the White House.
The companies claimed in a legal filing that the Constitution “protects the liberty and property interests of news organizations and White House reporters in their press credentials and the rights those credentials give them to report on the White House in the public interest.” “No official can deprive plaintiffs of these benefits on a whim, as the president has done here, without notice, without process, without warning.”
News organizations have precedent. In 2018, the first-term Trump administration banned then-CNN senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta from White House press interviews after the reporter tried to grab the microphone and an administration staffer tried to take it away from him. A federal judge ordered Acosta’s credentials be temporarily reinstated while CNN seeks legal remedies. The White House later dropped the matter and CNN ended its legal efforts.
More coming soon…