Leadership1 publisher3 min readPublished
POLITICO, CNN and MSNOW sue jointly three days after Trump revoked their credentials
The three outlets want a federal judge in Washington to declare Saturday's lockout unconstitutional, and their complaint pairs a First Amendment retaliation claim with a Fifth Amendment due process claim.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
What happened
- Secret Service officers confiscated the credentials of POLITICO, CNN and MSNOW journalists and denied them entry to the White House complex on Saturday.
- Trump had announced the ban on Truth Social the day before, effective immediately, and his post was vague about the reasons beyond complaints about fake news.
- The three outlets said in a joint statement on Monday that they had notified the government and were filing a federal suit that day to restore their reporters' access.
- The complaint names Trump, chief of staff Susie Wiles, communications director Steven Cheung and Secret Service Director Sean Curran as defendants.
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Why it matters
- decision The government has to defend the revocation in court on a compressed schedule, because the outlets asked for a quick ruling and an order barring enforcement rather than waiting on a full trial.
- precedent A win that turns only on missing notice would leave a future administration the option of revoking credentials with a written procedure attached, which is the ground on which the two earlier reporters got their passes back.
- exposure Three officials are named personally, so any injunction would bind individual staff and the Secret Service, not just the presidency as an institution.
- cost Each day the ban holds, the three newsrooms cover the White House without building access their competitors keep, and the suit says their reporting is already severely impeded.
Trump gave the reason on camera, the day before the lockout. "It's really just cumulative stories over the last few years. You get sick of it," he said during an Oval Office photo op on Friday. "They're smart people, but they purposely write negative news." [9] His Truth Social post the same day was less specific, complaining about "constant 'reporting'" of what he called "FAKE NEWS!" as well as "FICTION and LIES." [8]
Longstanding precedent permits the White House to restrict journalists' access [14]. The limit courts have added concerns the reason for the restriction. Officials cannot apply those restrictions in ways that discriminate based on viewpoint or content [14].
The earlier credential cases were not decided on that ground. In 2018 a judge ordered the hard pass of CNN's Jim Acosta restored, citing the murky process around its suspension [15]. The next year a federal judge ordered the White House to return the credential of Brian Karem, a Playboy freelancer, after concluding that the rules of decorum for such events were not clear enough to provide due process [16]. Both orders rested on process defects [3].
Last year's Associated Press dispute is the closest fit and the least settled. Trump barred the wire service from East Room events and removed it from the press pool after it declined to adopt Gulf of America, the name his executive order gave the Gulf of Mexico [17]. A federal district judge sided with the AP, and a D.C. Circuit panel then put the bulk of that ruling temporarily on hold [18]. Business Insider calls the most recent litigation's result muddled [19].
The outlets plead that cancelling access without notice violated their due process and property rights, and they plead First Amendment retaliation for the content of their reporting alongside it [12]. A judge following Acosta and Karem could restore three hard passes without deciding whether a president may weigh coverage at all. The outlets are asking the U.S. District Court in Washington to rule the ban unconstitutional quickly and to prevent Trump's aides from enforcing it [6].
Filing together changes the shape of that remedy. POLITICO, CNN and MSNOW compete with each other, and they brought one complaint, with one lawyer, Theodore Boutros Jr. of Gibson Dunn [10], against four defendants [1]. Curran is the only defendant who does not work in the president's own offices, and the order the outlets want would reach his agency [11]. The suit came three days after the Truth Social post [2]. White House and Justice Department spokespeople did not immediately return requests for comment [7].
"Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists' credentials because it objected to our reporting," the three organizations said in their joint statement [4]. What the three want now is entry to the complex. The suit also contends that other outlets could find themselves similarly locked out if the president deems their coverage "insufficiently favorable" [20].
What to watch
- Whether the district judge grants immediate relief or sets a fuller hearing before ruling on the ban.
- Whether the government's response defends the revocation on process grounds or on presidential discretion over access.
- Whether other credentialed outlets join the suit or file separately after the first ruling.