Trump Ban Temporarily Blocked By Judge, Who Orders CNN, Politico & MS NOW Credentials Restored

The Trump administration must restore press credentials for staffers at CNN, Politico and MS NOW, a federal judge ruled early Thursday morning, delivering a rebuke to the president’s efforts to ban the outlets from the White House grounds.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, granted a temporary restraining order to the media outlets, after they sued Trump and other top administration officials, claiming violations of the First and Fifth amendments. The temporary order is set for a duration of 14 days. Generally, such orders are given to allow the court to consider a case more thoroughly.

Trump has previously sought to revoke the credentials of individual reporters, but his latest ban was a sweeping effort to punish the media for negative reporting on him. Although the government later claimed national security concerns, attorneys for the outlets said that was a post-ban rationalization, violating their due process rights.

Earlier today, a collection of more than four dozen media groups and news outlets urged the judge to rule to end Trump’s ban. They included Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the White House Correspondents’ Association and 49 other media organizations. Among those signing on to the brief were the Associated Press, Reuters, NPR, the National Press Club, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox News and the Dow Jones Co.

After CNN was restricted from the network TV pool rotation at the White House earlier this week, four other networks — ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and Fox News — said that they would suspend their participation in an act of solidarity.