On Tuesday, a Trump-appointed federal judge ordered the White House to restore The Associated Press’s full access to President Trump, finding that the effort to ban the outlet over objections to its coverage violated the First Amendment.
The AP refused to recognize the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
Extra Special Access
“The government repeatedly characterizes the A.P.’s request as a demand for ‘extra special access.’ But that is not what The A.P. is asking for, and it is not what the court orders,” the Judge wrote. “All The A.P. wants, and all it gets, is a level playing field.”
Judge McFadden paused his order from taking effect until Sunday, giving the government five days to file an emergency appeal. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit The Associated Press filed in February, which asked that its longstanding access to smaller press events at the White House be reinstated.
Since the lawsuit was filed, the administration has prevented the publication from participating in the press pool, a rotating group of reporters that covers the president’s day-to-day activities, and blocked it from covering the president in intimate settings such as the Oval Office and Air Force One.
The Judge found that the White House’s moves amounted to a suppression of the outlet’s free speech rights and denied its journalists the same level of access as its competitors.
“Under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalists — be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere — it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” he wrote. “The Constitution requires no less.”
He noted that the Trump officials had been “brazen” in repeatedly and publicly acknowledging that it had banned the outlet precisely because of the standoff over its language.
President Trump isn’t going to win this one. The AP is awful, however.
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