“Presidents from the earliest days of the Republic have disagreed with and complained about the tenor and content of press coverage of their administrations,” the lawsuit says, but notes that “the Constitution protects the liberty and property interests that news organizations and White House reporters have in their press credentials and the access those credentials afford them to cover the White House for the benefit of the public.”
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice took to federal court to defend President Donald Trump from a lawsuit filed by CNN, MS Now, and Politico, all of which were recently banned from White House grounds for regularly reporting “fake news.”
According to National Public Radio, the Justice Department said that all three of the plaintiffs have engaged in journalism that both jeopardizes national security and spreads falsehoods about the Trump administration’s practices. In the filing, government attorneys asked the court to flatly reject the news outlets’ request to have White House access promptly reinstated.
More specifically, the Justice Department suggested that the three outlets have a long history of “trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues, and publishing sensitive or classified information.”
The agency’s response came several hours before an emergency session in a Washington, D.C.-based federal court.
The lawsuit, notes National Public Radio, was filed Monday; it accuses the Trump administration of violating the networks’ constitutional rights.
“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 lawsuit alleges, arguing that the new restrictions have already “severely impeded the ability of” the outlets to report current events.
“Presidents from the earliest days of the Republic have disagreed with and complained about the tenor and content of press coverage of their administrations,” the lawsuit says, but notes that “the Constitution protects the liberty and property interests that news organizations and White House reporters have in their press credentials and the access those credentials afford them to cover the White House for the benefit of the public.”
The lawsuit states that, under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, media outlets cannot be “punished” by the federal government over news coverage. It also claims that the revocation of White House access presents a distinct Fifth Amendment issue relating to due process, in that the government cannot take away rights or privileges without warning or providing an avenue for appeal.
“No official can deprive Plaintiffs of those interests on a whim—with no notice, no process, and no warning—as the President did here,” the lawsuit states.
The Justice Department, for its part, said that Trump made his decision after concluding that the plaintiffs “failed to maintain basic minimum standards of professionalism and decorum” and published “sensitive or classified information.”
“After all, access to the White House is a privilege—not a right,” the agency wrote.
The Trump administration claims that CNN and MS Now, for instance, endangered national security and “spread falsehoods” by publishing details related to issues such as the White House’s planned East Wing bunker and the general depletion of ammunition stockpiles during the Iran war. In a separate letter sent to Politico, the government contested coverage of Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Russia and took further issue with its characterization of the Republican midterm conference in Dallas as a “disaster.”
“The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool,” the White House said. “Access changes are nothing new. What is new, however, is the sudden claim that it becomes sacred only when the outlets are friendly to the Radical Left. The rule was never ‘every outlet in.’ It was always ‘our side stays in.’”
Sources
DOJ defends White House media ban, urges court to reject lawsuit
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