Press advocates sue Trump administration over White House pool bans

The group says the president's self-described “ban on the free press" violates the U.S. Constitution through unreasonable, viewpoint-based restrictions on White House press coverage.MANHATTAN (CN) — A group of scholars, journalists and press advocates sued President Donald Trump and his White House chiefs Monday over what they describe as the administration’s unconstitutional policy of imposing unreasonable restrictions on newsgathering and reporting through barring disfavored outlets from the White House press corps and Trump’s ongoing labeling of news organizations as “fake news.”“The policy is unconstitutional because it conditions access and participation in the White House Press Forum on criteria that are viewpoint-based and unreasonable,” the free press advocates wrote in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.Citing Trump’s recent ban of journalists from CNN, Politico and MS NOW last month, following his ban of The Associated Press reporters and photographers last year, the group of scholars and reporters say Trump’s labeling of outlets as “false” and “fake news,” along with this habitual sporadic barring of news outlets, wrests from them independent and accurate reporting on Trump’s White House.“The policy injures plaintiffs because it deprives them of reporting of the journalists and news organizations that defendants have targeted under the policy,” they wrote in the 25-page complaint. “Because it will deprive them of the reporting of the journalists and news organizations that defendants target under the policy in the future; and because the threat of being targeted in the future is likely to distort the reporting of news organizations today.”The plaintiffs say in the complaint that the White House press corps qualifies as a “limited public forum” protected under the First Amendment, and they also note that Trump himself has described the practices as his “ban on the free press.”“The First Amendment protects the public’s right to know what its government is doing. The White House cannot decide what information Americans receive by punishing critical reporting,” said Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute, in an announcement Monday. “When the White House expels reporters because of their coverage and threatens others with expulsion, it isn’t just the press that suffers—the public loses access to independent reporting and gets something closer to government propaganda.”In addition to Trump, the suit names as co-defendants: White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles and Secret Service Director Sean M. Curran.President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while flying aboard Air Force One en route from Calgary, Canada to Joint Base Andrews, Md., late Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)Represented by the Yale Law School Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the group seeks a federal judge’s declaration that the Trump White House’s policy and practice of revoking reporters’ credentials and barring them from the press pool is unconstitutional, and an order enjoining them from carrying out the practice.The group of plaintiffs is comprised of: Yale legal scholar Kenneth Roth, Yale political history professor Beverly Gage, Press Watch editor Daniel Froomkin, Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes, Brooklyn high school social studies teacher Peter Schmidt-Nowara, and Ethan Young, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Pennsylvanian, the University of Pennsylvania’s independent, student-run newspaper.White House representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday afternoon.Last month, a Trump-appointed federal district judge in Washington, D.C. quickly granted CNN, MS NOW and Politico a temporary restraining order that directed the White House to “immediately return, reinstate and restore” their journalists’ hard passes.On Oct. 13, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly granted the three news organizations a preliminary injunction, concluding that the government’s revocation of the organizations’ hard passes likely violated their First and Fifth Amendment rights.The Trump administration has repeatedly used national security to justify seemingly disconnected goals, from the president’s White House ballroom to its summary deportation of 137 Venezuelan migrants designated as Tren de Aragua gang members with flimsy evidence.Federal courts largely defer to the executive branch on national security matters, but the Trump administration’s expanded use of the doctrine has pushed judges to be skeptical.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads