Judge extends temporary access to White House for news organizations Trump banned

Filed 1h ago · Via Michigan Advance · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Magic Escape Room

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: The White House · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a first-term Trump appointee, extended a temporary restraining order through Tuesday that forces the White House to return press passes it confiscated from reporters at CNN, MS Now, and Politico, and said he will rule soon on a longer-term injunction. Trump announced the ban on social media in mid-September, writing that outlets covering him with ‘FICTION and LIES’ shouldn't keep their access, before officials later added that they had concerns about the outlets' national security reporting.

Attorney Theodore Boutrous, representing the news organizations, argued at Thursday's hearing that the ban amounted to viewpoint discrimination and that Trump ‘got up on the wrong side of the bed and declared a ban.’ Justice Department counsel Michael Velchik countered that the decision rested on journalistic standards concerns as well as security, and noted the outlets didn't respond to the administration's follow-up letters rebutting the allegations.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

The president posted his actual reason in plain English before anyone's lawyers got involved, which makes the later talk of national security read like a story added after the fact to make the first one sound better in court. A judge appointed by the same president is the one now deciding whether that works, which is its own kind of poetic justice. Watch what happens to the letters nobody answered, since silence gets treated as guilt only when it's convenient for the side holding the gate.

Source: Read the original at Michigan Advance → Scored: Magic Escape Room · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0