Judge Rules Trump White House Cannot Prohibit Associated Press From Oval Office Access As Punishment For Its Editorial Choices

A federal judge has sided with the Associated Press in its lawsuit against the Trump administration, ruling that the president and his team could not restrict the news organization from White House events as punishment for refusing the rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden wrote, “The Court simply holds that 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. The Constitution requires no less.”

Read the judge’s Trump-Associated Press decision.

The judge, an appointee to the bench in Trump’s first term, cautioned that his ruling “does not limit the various permissible reasons the Government may have for excluding journalists from limited-access events. It does not mandate that all eligible journalists, or indeed any journalists at all, be given access to the President or nonpublic government spaces. It does not prohibit government officials from freely choosing which journalists to sit down with for interviews or which ones’ questions they answer. And it certainly does not prevent senior officials from publicly expressing their own views.”

The judge also is giving Trump’s team some leeway to appeal.

In granting the AP’s motion for a preliminary injunction, McFadden ordered the White House to “immediately rescind the denial of the AP’s access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other limited spaces based on the AP’s viewpoint when such spaces are made open to other members of the White House press pool.” He also ordered the White House to rescind the denial of access to events opened to all credentialed journalists. But in a separate order, McFadden gave the White House until April 13 time to seek an emergency stay from a higher court and to prepare to implement the preliminary injunction.

In February, Trump’s team banned the AP from the White House pool, including access to smaller events in the Oval Office and travel on Air Force One, as well as larger events in the East Room. AP reporters and phorographers continued to have hard pass access to the White House itself.

Trump and his staffers were explicit for the reasons: The AP declined to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, aligning with one of the president’s executive orders. The AP cited the fact that other countries had not recognized the name change for an international body of water, although the news organization said that it would acknowledge Trump’s EO.

The AP then sued, arguing that the restrictions were a violation of the First Amendment and its due process rights.

In granting the AP’s motion for a preliminary injunction, McFadden ordered the White House to “immediately rescind the denial of the AP’s access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other limited spaces based on the AP’s viewpoint when such spaces are made open to other members of the White House press pool.” He also ordered the White House to rescind the denial of access to events opened to all credentialed journalists.

More to come.