Journalists from CNN and MS NOW successfully returned to the White House on Thursday after a federal judge ordered the temporary reinstatement of the credentials for those media outlets and Politico, which had been revoked following the ban announced by President Donald Trump.
Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court in Washington granted a temporary restraining order for 14 days and ordered that the credentials be returned "immediately." The magistrate determined that the media would likely be able to demonstrate that their passes were revoked without adequate constitutional due process, reported the agency EFE.
The decision came after these three outlets sued the Trump administration, claiming violations of their constitutional rights.
However, the court order was not carried out immediately.
Journalists from the three media outlets attempted to enter this Thursday morning but were rejected once again. In at least some cases, Secret Service agents went so far as to confiscate their press passes, according to a new court filing from the plaintiffs.
The media then requested an emergency hearing, and Kelly ordered the administration to respond to the allegations of noncompliance. Finally, around noon, reporters began regaining access to the presidential complex.
The dispute coincided with the visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping, one of the most significant international events of the day.
The conflict began after Trump announced the ban against CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, accusing them of spreading false information.
Trump later stated that the decision was not in response to a specific publication, but rather to what he described as two years of "unfair and negative" coverage. The Department of Justice later argued that information from those media outlets had jeopardized national security, a claim to which Kelly expressed skepticism, noting that the government had not demonstrated how the cited articles had caused such harm.
The decision also sparked an unusual reaction among other major U.S. media outlets. ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox News suspended their joint coverage in solidarity with the excluded journalists.
Kelly, appointed as a federal judge by Trump in 2017, previously intervened in a similar dispute in 2018 when he issued a temporary restraining order that required the White House to restore the credential of then-CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, as he believed that Acosta's due process rights had likely been violated.
The current order will remain in effect for 14 days while the litigation continues over whether the White House can maintain the ban on the three media outlets.
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