Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

MS NOW, CNN And Politico Suing Trump Admin Over White House Ban

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MS NOW, CNN and Politico announced Monday that they are suing President Donald Trump’s administration for banning reporters’ White House access.

Trump said in a Friday Truth Social post that the three news outlets would be immediately blocked from accessing the White House for writing “FICTION and LIES” about his administration. MS NOW, CNN and Politico’s lawsuit seeks to stop the ban and immediately restore White House press access and credentials for the outlets’ reporters.

“The President banned CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO, and the individual reporters covering the news for those media organizations, in disregard of the most basic guarantees of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause,” according to the lawsuit. “He did so expressly for the improper purpose of retaliating against Plaintiffs for past news coverage because he deemed it ‘negative’ and chilling future reporting about him and his administration’s policies and actions.”

“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the suit claims.

The complaint also alleges that the ban is “already severely impeding the ability of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO to cover the President and his administration.”

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who Trump appointed in 2017, NBC News reported.

Additionally, the lawsuit claims that CNN, MS NOW, Politico “and their journalists have liberty and property interests in their press credentials and the access those credentials afford to the White House grounds to report on” Trump and his administration.

“This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,” Politico, CNN and MS Now said in a joint statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

The White House did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Trump claimed in a Monday Truth Social post that the White House “is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish.”

“It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America,” he added in the post.