The Justice Department argued late Friday that President Donald Trump should be allowed to reinstate his ban barring CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, filing the claim ahead of a hearing next week in the news organizations’ lawsuit.
CNN reports the department said Trump determined the outlets had published stories that “adversely affect national security, including publishing possibly classified or sensitive information,” and that cutting off access “removes one avenue for these outlets to obtain such harmful information.”
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly is weighing whether to extend a two-week order that restored the outlets’ access. That order expires at the end of next week. He will hold a hearing Thursday on the outlets’ request for a preliminary injunction, which would keep access in place longer while the case continues.
In a filing last Monday night, the news organizations said the stories Trump objected to were the kind of reporting the Constitution’s framers meant to protect. They called the ban an “unlawful assault on the most fundamental First Amendment freedoms.”
The White House has said the outlets published stories that risked national security—an argument Kelly rejected last week. Friday’s Justice Department filing offered no new evidence that the stories threatened national security. The department said it did not have to show the outlets “actually published classified information,” and it treated the spread of “misinformation” itself as a national security risk.
The outlets are challenging the ban on First Amendment grounds and say the administration violated their due process rights in how it carried out the restrictions.
Trump announced the ban last month in a social media post and later comments, citing frustration with the outlets’ coverage. The White House has since said the organizations posed a national security threat with stories about the Iran war, East Wing ballroom construction and the GOP midterm convention.
Before Kelly restored access, the administration deactivated and confiscated the outlets’ White House press badges. Even after the order, the White House has limited their participation in the press pool, the rotating group that covers presidential events that cannot fit the full press corps. CNN was also not allowed to travel with the president to Tennessee on Saturday, though it was scheduled to do so under the pool rotation.
In last week’s temporary restraining order, Kelly said precedent showed the administration violated due process by cutting off access without advance notice and a chance to object. The outlets’ lawyers are also asking him to rule that the ban violates the First Amendment, to limit further White House efforts to work around his orders.