By Nathaniel "Beltway" Steele
A federal judge moved before dawn Thursday to undo what three news organizations called an unconstitutional purge of the White House press corps.
The judge granted CNN, Politico and MS NOW a temporary restraining order, ordering the White House to immediately restore the outlets' hard-pass credentials. In her ruling, the judge said President Trump's directive barring the three organizations last week was "most likely unconstitutional," according to reporting from NBC News and CBS News.
The order reverses, for now, a ban that had shut out three newsrooms from the briefing room and the grounds where presidents have answered reporters' questions for generations. CBS News legal contributor Jessica Levinson had noted before the ruling that the ban was already facing a First Amendment lawsuit, with the outlets arguing the administration cannot pick and choose which journalists cover the presidency based on its own satisfaction with their coverage.
The White House had not detailed, in public terms cited in the coverage reviewed here, a legal justification for the exclusion beyond the president's own directive. The ruling is temporary — a restraining order, not a final judgment — meaning the underlying First Amendment lawsuit will continue.
What's clear already: a court has told the executive branch, in writing, that shutting reporters out of the building because you don't like their coverage runs into constitutional trouble fast. What's not yet clear is whether the administration will appeal, comply quietly, or test the line again in some narrower form. That fight isn't over. It's just moved to the next hearing.
Read the footnotes. The story's always in the footnotes.
— Compiled from reporting by NBC News, ABC News, and CBS News.
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