By MATT SEDENSKY AP National Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday refused to immediately order the White House to restore The Associated Press’ access to presidential events, saying the news organization had not demonstrated it had suffered any irreparable harm. But he urged the Trump administration to reconsider its two-week-old ban, saying that case law “is uniformly unhelpful to the White House.”
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden’s decision was only for the moment, however. He told attorneys for the Trump administration and the AP that the issue required more exploration before ruling.
McFadden peppered both sides with questions during arguments over a lawsuit the AP filed Friday saying that its First Amendment rights were being violated by the ban, which began gradually two weeks ago. President Donald Trump said it was punishment for the agency’s decision not to entirely follow his executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
McFadden, discussing the composition of the “press pool” that is chosen by the White House Correspondents’ Association, questioned why the government was obligated to follow those choices. “It feels a little odd that the White House is somehow bound by the decisions this private organization is making,” the judge told AP attorneys.
He also questioned AP’s noting of its longtime membership in the White House press pool. “Is this administration somehow bound by what happened with President McKinley?” the judge asked. But he noted that the correspondents’ group had been tasked by the White House to choose the members of its pool.
“The White House has accepted the correspondents’ association to be the referee here, and has just discriminated against one organization. That does seem problematic,” McFadden said in an exchange with government attorney Brian Hudak.
Later, McFadden warned the government’s attorney to reconsider its position, saying “case law in this circuit is uniformly unhelpful to the White House.”
The AP says it is adhering to the “Gulf of Mexico” terminology because its audience is global and the waters are not only in U.S. territory, but it is acknowledging Trump’s rechristening as well.
AP says the issue strikes at the very core of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which bars the government from punishing speech. The White House says access to the president is a privilege, not a right.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration began barring the AP from the Oval Office, Air Force One and other areas that have been open to the agency for a century as part of the White House press pool. The dispute stems from AP’s refusal to change its style in referring to the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump decreed the “Gulf of America” via an executive order.
The AP named three Trump officials – White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich and press secretary Karoline Leavitt – as defendants. The agency, a nonprofit news outlet in operation since 1846, called the White House’s move a “targeted attack” of the sort barred by the First Amendment.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the AP said in its lawsuit.
The White House says its move to restrict AP is not an infringement of free-speech rights. “The only person who has the absolute right to occupy those spaces is the president of the United States,” Wiles wrote to Julie Pace, AP’s executive editor, in an email included in the agency’s lawsuit. “For the rest of us, it’s a privilege, and to suggest otherwise is wrong.”
Dozens of news organizations signed a letter last week urging the White House to reverse its policy. The signees included Trump-friendly outlets like Fox News Channel and Newsmax.
Trump has dismissed the AP as an organization of “radical left lunatics” and said: “We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America.”
It isn’t the first case of its kind, nor even the first to involve Trump. In Trump’s first term, reporter Jim Acosta of CNN had his White House credentials revoked. After CNN sued, another federal judge appointed by Trump ruled in Acosta’s favor to restore access.