A federal judge ordered the White House on Thursday to immediately restore press credentials to CNN, MS NOW and Politico, finding the outlets are likely to win their First and Fifth Amendment claims over the abrupt revocation.
Judge Finds No Security Record Behind the Ban
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly granted a 14-day temporary restraining order in Cable News Networks, Inc. v. Trump, the case the three outlets filed after Secret Service officers turned away their reporters and confiscated hard-pass credentials on Sept. 19. Kelly, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by President Donald Trump during his first term, wrote that the outlets are “likely to succeed” on claims the credential pulls violated their constitutional rights.
The order turns on a mismatch the judge said the government could not explain. The Trump administration told the court the revocations were driven by national security concerns and by the outlets’ failure to meet professionalism standards. But Kelly wrote that the record built before the lawsuit was filed contained no support for that claim. “Nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” he wrote in the order.
Instead, Kelly pointed to what Trump actually said when he announced the ban around Sept. 18, accusing the outlets of pushing “fake news” and “fiction and lies” in their coverage of him. “That is not what President Trump said when he announced” the ban, Kelly wrote, noting the president “focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness” in the outlets’ reporting rather than any security threat. That gap between the reason the administration gave the public at the time and the reason it gave the court after being sued became a central piece of the judge’s reasoning.
Kelly also faulted the administration for revoking credentials based on stories he described as routine, and in some cases months old, without giving the reporters notice or a chance to respond before their access was cut.
The judge also rejected the specificity of the standard the White House said justified the ban, calling it “so vague it hardly does the trick.” Kelly summarized the burden the outlets faced and concluded they cleared it: “This is a high bar, but Plaintiffs have met it.”
White House Defends Credentialing as a Privilege
The Justice Department, defending the administration in court, argued that access to the White House complex is “a privilege — not a right,” and said officials had discretion to revoke hard passes over national-security concerns and standards of professionalism and decorum among journalists covering the president. Attorneys for the administration told the court the White House retains broad authority over who is allowed inside, distinct from the general public’s right to gather news elsewhere.
Kelly did not dispute that the White House holds some discretion over access. His order instead found that the specific process used here, revoking credentials without notice or an opportunity to contest the decision, and without a security rationale documented before the lawsuit began, fell short of what due process requires. The outlets argued the ban amounted to retaliation for coverage the president disliked, a claim that implicates the First Amendment’s protection against government retaliation over speech, alongside their Fifth Amendment due-process claim.
Trump has said he intends to appeal any ruling against the ban. The eight-page order applies to White House officials carrying out the credentialing process, though it exempts the president himself from being directly bound by its terms.
CNN reported its correspondent Betsy Klein regained access to the White House grounds around noon Thursday, hours after Kelly signed the order early that morning. MS NOW and Politico reporters also returned to their posts on the North Lawn and in the briefing room that day.
What a 14-Day Order Actually Does
A temporary restraining order is not a final ruling on the merits of the case. It is an emergency measure meant to preserve the situation as it stood before the disputed action, in this case by putting the reporters back on White House grounds, while the underlying lawsuit continues. Kelly’s order lasts 14 days, and by its terms can be extended or modified by the court before it expires.
To find the outlets “likely to succeed,” Kelly was not deciding the case outright. He was weighing whether they had shown enough evidence at this early stage to justify emergency relief while litigation proceeds, alongside the other factors courts consider for a TRO, including whether the outlets would suffer irreparable harm without it and where the public interest lies.
Those same findings, however, signal how the judge is likely to view a fuller record if the case proceeds toward a preliminary injunction, a longer-lasting order that would require a more developed evidentiary record and full briefing from both sides.
What Happens Next
The 14-day window gives both sides time to prepare for the next stage of the case. CNN, MS NOW and Politico are expected to press for a preliminary injunction that would keep their reporters credentialed for the duration of the lawsuit, rather than just the next two weeks. The Justice Department can appeal Kelly’s order or use the period to assemble the kind of documented security justification the judge found missing from the record so far.
Kelly’s order leaves open the possibility that the administration could still prevail if it produces evidence, developed through the normal litigation process, that connects the credential revocations to genuine security concerns rather than to the content of the outlets’ coverage. Until then, reporters from all three organizations retain their White House access under the terms of the TRO.
