Reporters back at White House after judge ordered Trump to lift ban

The White House (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Reporters from three news outlets banned from the White House by President Donald Trump were back on the grounds on Thursday afternoon, hours after a federal judge ordered the administration to reinstate their access.

CNN, MS Now and Politico journalists were allowed back in the latest development in an extraordinary showdown between Mr Trump and media outlets whose coverage he dislikes.

It comes during a heavy news cycle with Chinese leader Xi Jinping visiting Mr Trump, and world leaders gathered for the United Nations General Assembly.

Also on Thursday, the news outlets had asked in a court filing for an immediate hearing to address their inability to access the White House grounds earlier in the day.

The filing said a Secret Service agent had confiscated the journalists’ credentials.

Mr Trump first announced he was banning the outlets on Friday, assailing what he called “fake news,” and only later arguing that their reporting was a risk to national security.

The outlets argued in a joint lawsuit that the ban was a blatant violation of the First Amendment because it singled them out for the content of their coverage.

In his late-night ruling to temporarily strike down the ban, US District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the three outlets’ access.

He said they had met the legal thresholds to obtain a temporary restraining order, in effect for 14 days, and were likely to succeed in showing that their press passes were revoked without due process.

“This is a high bar, but Plaintiffs have met it,” he wrote.

Judge Kelly — whom Trump nominated in 2017 and who ordered a CNN journalist’s access restored in a similar case in 2018 — said the government must have clear standards for conduct that would lead to revoking a press pass.

He called the standard of objectionable reporting outlined in letters that the White House sent the outlets “so vague it hardly does the trick”.

The judge also made clear he did not buy the administration’s argument that the news outlets’ reporting endangered national security — and noted that Mr Trump himself had not used that argument in the beginning, focusing solely on what he called negative coverage.

“Nothing in the record … suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” he wrote.

The ruling came after Judge Kelly heard arguments in an emergency hearing on Wednesday. Temporary restraining orders are typically designed to preserve the status quo pending a closer review of the case by the court.

“This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law,” Theodore Boutrous Jr, attorney for the outlets, said in an emailed statement.

“We greatly appreciate the court’s swift action.”

The White House did not respond to emails from The Associated Press asking for comment on the order.