The Justice Department filed papers late Friday, October 2, asking a federal judge to let President Donald Trump reinstate his ban on reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico accessing the White House. In the filing, the department argued that the president has the authority to determine that a news organization fails to meet "minimum requirements of professionalism" — and to bar it from the grounds on that basis. The move escalates the White House's fight with the three news outlets over revoked press credentials.
The DOJ's central claim is that access to the White House is "a privilege — not a right." The filing argues that the three outlets failed to meet "basic minimum standards of professionalism and decorum expected of those given access to the White House Complex," including by "publishing sensitive or classified information." "The White House is the home and workplace for the Nation's Commander-in-Chief," the department wrote.
More controversially, the Justice Department said it was not required to show that the outlets "actually published classified information" to justify the ban, and leaned into the idea that spreading "misinformation" is itself a national security risk. The filing went further, arguing that *Sherrill v. Knight*, the 1977 D.C. Circuit precedent holding that the White House cannot deny press access "arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons," was wrongly decided and should be overturned.
The dispute began on September 18, when Trump announced on Truth Social that he was barring the three outlets "effective immediately," accusing them of being "fake news" organizations that "shouldn't be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they're covering the President of the United States." The next morning, reporters from all three outlets were turned away at the White House gates, and the Secret Service confiscated their hard passes — the permanent badges that let accredited reporters enter the grounds without daily clearance.
The outlets sued two days later, alleging violations of the First Amendment and of their due process rights. On September 24, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly — a Trump appointee — issued a 14-day temporary restraining order directing White House officials to "immediately return, reinstate, and restore" the hard-pass credentials held by dozens of the outlets' employees. Kelly wrote that "nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs' hard passes was motivated by national security concerns," noting that this was certainly not what Trump said when he announced the ban.
The national security justification, in other words, appeared only after the lawsuit began. The outlets' attorney, Theodore Boutrous, called it a pretext: "They are using national security as this talisman — these magic words. It is just a pretextual, post hoc effort to justify just a blatant violation of due process."
The case reaches beyond the three newsrooms. If the Justice Department succeeds in overturning *Sherrill*, the White House could far more freely exclude any outlet by invoking undefined "professionalism" standards. Free speech advocates have warned that weakening an independent press undermines a core democratic check.
Judge Kelly is no stranger to this kind of case. In 2018, he ordered the White House to restore CNN correspondent Jim Acosta's press pass after the administration revoked it — a ruling that leaned on the same *Sherrill* precedent the DOJ now wants gone. CNN dropped that suit once Acosta's pass was restored. Now the same judge faces a much larger fight, with three newsrooms shut out at once.
Even after the restraining order restored their credentials, the White House has continued limiting the outlets' participation in the press pool. CNN, which was scheduled to travel with the president on Air Force One to Tennessee on Saturday under the pool rotation, was blocked from the trip.
The outlets must file their final written submission by Monday, October 5, and Kelly will hold a hearing next week on their request for a preliminary injunction that would last for the duration of the case. The current temporary order expires October 8. Kelly has said he intends to rule "expeditiously."
Procedurally, Trump cannot appeal until Kelly decides on the preliminary injunction. He could also simply back down and end the case at any time — as happened in 2018 when the Acosta pass was restored. But with the DOJ now explicitly asking a court to throw out a nearly 50-year-old precedent, the White House appears ready to fight this one all the way.