WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Tuesday extended a block on a Trump administration ban of press passes for three news organizations, which will allow them to continue to enter the White House grounds while a legal challenge to the ban, including a Wednesday appeal filed by the administration, plays out.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly in a 26-page order rejected Department of Justice arguments that the revocation of passes for CNN, Politico and MS NOW was based on the administration’s concern over reporting that endangered national security.

“First, there is no evidence in the record that President (Donald) Trump made the decision to revoke Plaintiffs’ hard passes on national security grounds from the get-go, nor at any time has he directly stated that national security was the reason for his decision. When he announced the ban with his post on September 18, he did not mention national security,” Kelly wrote.

Kelly also said the news organizations were likely to succeed on their claim that the White House unlawfully retaliated against them for exercising their First Amendment rights. He noted that a previous court decision bars government officials from subjecting individuals to retaliatory actions after the fact for having engaged in speech protected by the amendment.

“President Trump’s own comments suggest that he intended the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes to alter their reporting on him, bolstering the case that his action here is sufficient to deter a reporter of ordinary firmness from reporting in the same way she had before,” Kelly said.

He said the news organizations were also likely to succeed in their argument that they were denied due process by the administration.

Kelly granted the news outlets’ request for a preliminary injunction, which Trump already has said the administration will appeal. It replaces a temporary restraining order, also granted by Kelly, that expired Tuesday.

The administration on Tuesday afternoon filed a notice to Kelly that it had appealed his ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The notice of appeal did not contain any legal arguments. The court ordered the administration to submit a brief outlining its case by Nov. 13. The news organizations’ response is due by the end of November.

Kelly’s ruling came a little over three weeks after Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico. The president announced the measure via his social media platform on Sept.18, “a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” he wrote. 

The White House press office followed with letters Sept. 22 to the three outlets citing national security concerns and allegations of misinformation as reasons reporters’ press passes were revoked.

Trump’s order ousted 78 journalists from the three outlets, according to a court filing.

In a show of solidarity, major television networks that rotate distributing video coverage from the White House suspended video feeds over the next several days. 

The three news outlets sued the White House in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on First Amendment grounds and alleged the ban caused irreparable harm to the organizations.

Kelly temporarily ordered the White House to restore press access on Sept. 24 to the three banned outlets. 

Kelly, who appeared skeptical during an initial hearing, wrote in the eight-page temporary order that the media outlets were likely to succeed in the case, and that the journalists were denied their due process rights before their passes were confiscated.

Michael Velchik, senior counsel in the civil division of the Justice Department, had argued on Sept. 23 that access to the White House “is a privilege not a right.”

Kelly was nominated by Trump during his first term and confirmed by the Senate in September 2017 by a vote of 94-2.

In response to a request for comment, the White House confirmed in a background statement not attributed to an individual that the decision will be appealed.

“The Fake News has no place demanding a spot in the President’s Oval Office. The lies they smear are a disservice to the American public and tear at the very fabric of our Democracy. They’re completely capable of reporting from directly outside. We intend to appeal this misguided decision,” the statement said.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., the lawyer for the news outlets, said they were grateful for Kelly’s ruling.

“When the President issued his ‘ban on the free press,’ he blatantly and explicitly violated due process and the First Amendment,” Boutrous said in a statement. “Since then, the President has repeatedly, candidly, and consistently admitted in public that he banned our clients from the White House to punish reporting he doesn’t like and to try to force journalists to cover him in ways he prefers. The harm this ban did to our clients, the First Amendment, and the public as a whole is profound. The Court was right to enjoin the White House from enforcing this unconstitutional ‘ban on the free press’ for the foreseeable future.”

Kelly also noted in his ruling that Trump could be right in his concerns about the nature of reporting on him, and that there were instances in which a national security argument would succeed.

“Still, no one should interpret the Court’s decision to suggest that President Trump’s concerns about accuracy and fairness in the media’s reporting are unfounded, or that the government is powerless when its true aim is to protect national security when classified information is unlawfully disclosed,” he said.

WASHINGTON — The three news organizations that President Donald Trump barred from entering the White House grounds earlier this month have asked a federal judge to ensure their reporters continue to have access after a temporary restraining order expires in early October. 

Attorneys for CNN, MS Now and Politico filed paperwork late Monday requesting a preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that without it the administration is likely to again revoke press passes for journalists at those news organizations and possibly others. 

“The President has stated that there will be ‘Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow,’ … leaving other news organizations covering the White House to face the prospect that their access may likewise depend on the President’s view of their coverage,” the brief states. “And each day the ban remains in effect, the public loses access to essential reporting on the President and his administration.”

Trump announced on Sept. 18 that he planned to prevent reporters from CNN, MS Now and Politico from reporting on White House grounds. Those news organizations filed a lawsuit a few days later, after several of their reporters were denied entry at a security checkpoint and had their press passes confiscated by Secret Service officers. 

District Court Judge Timothy Kelly, who was nominated during Trump’s first term, issued a temporary restraining order on Sept. 23, requiring the White House to return the press passes and allow the journalists it had barred back in. 

That order expires Oct. 8, but could be replaced by a preliminary injunction if the judge agrees with the request filed by the three news organizations this week. 

That 49-page brief argues the president’s ban retaliated against the news organizations “for engaging in speech, publication, and newsgathering activities that the First Amendment protects but the administration disfavors.”

The attorneys representing the journalists wrote that Trump administration officials claiming the ban was related to national security concerns were “not credible.” 

They later wrote that “the President’s own words leave no doubt that banning Plaintiffs from the White House and denying them the access they had as of September 18 is retaliation for their protected newsgathering and speech—adverse action intended to cow them into conforming the content of their reporting to the President’s preferences and to threaten other journalists lest they suffer the same fate. That is a paradigmatic First Amendment violation.” 

The administration’s response brief is due Friday.

WASHINGTON — U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly early Thursday issued an order that temporarily blocks President Donald Trump’s ban of three news organizations from the White House.

Kelly, in the eight-page order, said that the White House must “immediately return, reinstate, and restore the White House ‘hard pass’ press credentials held by employees of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO that were revoked” Friday and over the weekend.

The White House, however, didn’t appear to be following the ruling as of 10 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, when attorneys representing the news organizations filed a brief asking the court to hold a videoconference meeting as soon as possible. 

“This morning journalists from each of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO attempted to enter the White House and were turned away. A Secret Service agent confiscated the hard pass of journalists from all three organizations,” they wrote. 

Micah Stopperich, director of White House press operations, declared in a court filing just before 12:30 p.m. Eastern that his team delivered the press badges to the entry gate at 9:55 a.m. Eastern to be distributed to members of the media who had them confiscated. 

Kelly’s order will continue for 14 days while the case continues to be fought in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Trump is scheduled to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House Thursday.

Although Trump has indicated he will appeal any court ruling on the matter, Kelly noted that temporary restraining orders are “generally unappealable.” He said he would schedule a hearing for motions for a preliminary injunction, which would last until the final outcome of the suit and could be appealed.

The case began Monday when the three news outlets sued the Trump administration for barring their reporters from entering the White House grounds. 

The news organizations asked the district court to grant them either a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction that would require the White House to return the press passes, allowing the journalists to work from the complex once again. 

Kelly, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, had heard arguments in the case on Wednesday and appeared skeptical at the time of Department of Justice arguments. In his ruling, he said it appeared likely that the news outlets would succeed with their claim that journalists were denied their due process rights before their passes were confiscated.

While the Department of Justice argued that earlier cases dealing with press access to the White House were wrongly decided in journalists’ favor, Kelly said that he was “bound by D.C. Circuit precedent, full stop,” referring to earlier rulings by the appeals court.

Kelly in his order also expressed doubt about Department of Justice arguments that the ban was in response to concerns about articles that dealt with national security or classified information, saying DOJ “offered little” to back up that contention. 

Some news articles cited by the administration as endangering national security were written by reporters who didn’t even have White House passes, he noted.

Trump did not mention national security in announcing the ban and “instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting,” Kelly said. 

“For another—and simply put—the record lacks factual support for Defendants’ contention that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes will in fact protect national security or that national security will be endangered if the Court orders their passes reinstated while this litigation proceeds,” Kelly said. 

The White House when asked for comment referred States Newsroom to the statement filed with the court that the press badges have been restored.

Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., the lawyer for the news outlets, praised the decision. “This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law,” he said in a statement. “We greatly appreciate the court’s swift action.”

Jennifer Shutt and Ashley Murray contributed to this report. 

WASHINGTON — U.S. District Court Judge Timothy J. Kelly indicated during a Wednesday hearing he may order the Trump administration to reinstate White House press passes for reporters from three news organizations who had their credentials revoked this weekend. 

Kelly, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said at the beginning of a 45-minute hearing that he is largely bound by circuit court rulings that ensure journalists with White House press passes have due process rights before their access to the complex could be rescinded. 

“The government says those cases … were wrongly decided,” Kelly said. “Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. But certainly as a district judge I have to apply them and I think it is fair to say that the processes that the Circuit Court laid out in those two cases … (weren’t) followed here.”

Kelly said at the end of the hearing he will release his ruling as soon as he can, though he did not give any more details about how soon that might be. 

President Donald Trump nominated Kelly during his first term and the Senate confirmed him following a broadly bipartisan vote in September 2017. 

This case began Monday when CNN, MS Now and Politico sued the Trump administration for barring their reporters from entering the White House grounds. 

The news organizations asked the district court to grant them either a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction that would require the White House to return the press passes, allowing the journalists to work from the complex once again. 

‘Very essence of the First Amendment’

Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., a partner at Gibson Dunn who represented the news organizations, said the president’s decision to revoke the press passes of 78 journalists represented an “unprecedented, unreasonable and severe punishment.”  

“What the government is objecting to … is that very essence of the First Amendment,” he said.  

Boutrous said claims from the White House the president’s decision was based on national security concerns only came after the lawsuit was filed, not when the decision was announced Friday, or over the weekend when it was implemented. 

Trump said Friday in response to questions from reporters in the Oval Office that his ban wasn’t in response to any specific story but “really just cumulative stories over the last two years.”

“They’re smart people, but they purposely write negative news. And they do that because they want to try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration,” he said. “And honestly, we’ve done a fantastic job. Look at the numbers, look at the economic numbers. We have more money coming into our country today than ever before.”

Boutrous argued during the hearing that while the president holds the right to criticize reporters and news organizations as much as he wants, the administration cannot “use the power of the government to punish them for their expression.” 

In response to questions from the judge about whether there would ever be a circumstance where the White House could revoke a press pass, Boutrous said if someone was a spy, represented a physical threat, or a national security threat, “there would of course be authority by the White House to deal with that.”

But he also referenced the Pentagon Papers, and said he didn’t believe that type of reporting on national security issues would justify revoking a reporter’s White House press pass.

The White House’s decision to revoke press passes for reporters from those three news organizations has led the major television networks that rotate daily coverage of the president to stop doing so. The decision has limited what videos of the president are released through that television pool system. 

DOJ argues access ‘a privilege, not a right’

Michael Velchik, senior counsel in the civil division of the Justice Department, said the Trump administration would oppose a ruling  requiring the White House to return the press passes and allow reporters from those news organizations to resume coverage there. 

“Access to the White House is a privilege not a right,” he said. 

Velchik seemed to suggest that if the judge were to require the White House to reinstate the press passes, it shouldn’t happen during the next few days, when Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to be in Washington, D.C., to meet with the president.

The White House, he said, had also sent letters to CNN, MS Now and Politico on Tuesday, informing them why their press passes were revoked and giving them the chance to reply by Friday evening. 

Democrat sees ban as part of pattern

U.S. House Administration Committee ranking member Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., said during a separate virtual press briefing on Wednesday that he believes the ban of the news outlets was part of a pattern of Trump misusing government power to attack perceived opponents.

“The Trump administration has flagrantly abused the immense power of the federal government against organizations and institutions whose work, whose clients or viewpoints it disagrees with,” he said. “We don’t need to look any further than this outrageous attempt by the president to silence CNN, MS Now, Politico and others.”

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.