The federal judge rejects it to temporarily restore the full access of AP to the White House

Cnn
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On Monday, a federal judge rejected the access of the Associated Press to some events by President Donald Trump, the Oval Office and the Air Force One.

The US district judge Trevor McFadden rejected an application from AP, a ban that Trump imposed America. ”

While McFadden made the application for temporary injunction during a hearing on Monday, the judge planned a hearing for March 20 to hear arguments on the application of the AP after an injunction.

McFadden from the US district court in Washington, DC, was appointed by Trump in 2017.

McFadden stated a number of reasons why he decided at this stage in the legal dispute to refuse to apply for emergency aid, including that he was not persuaded that the AP was “irreparable damage” due to the ban.

He said that the news organization could “get access to the same information” from the pool notes that are given to all members of the Correspondence Association of the White House, even if they are excluded from the events in which this messages are made.

And he said that the delay of the organization when the lawsuit was introduced was proof that it was not so injured that his intervention was necessary more than a week after the ban on the white house was introduced.

During the hearing, however, the judge seemed to be somewhat skeptical about the legality of the ban and at one point to describe it as “discriminatory” and “problematic”.

And while the judge seemed to be questioned with the way the pool is set up, he also found that decades of practice to cover a certain presidential news events is something that has accepted the White House for a long time .

“It feels a little strange that the white house is bound to certain decisions that this private organization makes,” he said once. He later added that the White House “accepted the ability of the White House correspondence association to be the referee here”.

The Press spokesman for the White House, Karoline Leavitt, published an explanation of X, in which the government was on its decision to limit the access of AP to the president. “As we said from the beginning, it is a privilege, journalists, no legal right to have granted a privilege from the start to the United States’ questions in the Oval Office and on board the Air Force one,” it said.

“We look forward to our next hearing on March 20, where we will continue to stand for the law of the press and the public without speaking without retaliation without government. This is a fundamental American freedom, ”said AP spokesman Lauren Easton in a statement.

Last week, the AP sued Susie Wiles, Leavitt and deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich, the deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich, and argues that the ban violates the first change and clause on the proper change.

During the hastily planned hearing on Monday afternoon, a lawyer told the judge that the White House tried to force the news organization inadmissible to restrict the “official vocabulary of the government” by limiting its access to certain events and areas of the president.

The lawyer Charles Tobin said that the “ground of the ban continues to be postponed” and explained how his scope in the past few days about both AP reporters and photographers – and that he now appears as if it appears a Total bar is “at the access of the organization at almost all press events in the White House.

He said that the White House “AP and no one else selected” because the organization publishes a widespread style book. The government, said Tobin, wanted his client to “help them change the national vocabulary in their mission”.

In court files, Tobin and other lawyers said that the AP without an emergency court will fulfill an irreparable damage, which would also flow to his member organization and the readers of the member news.

“The exclusion of the AP from the Oval Office, the Air Force One and other rooms that are open to other members of the press pool hinders the ability to create in good time, thorough and informative reporting,” says the submissions.

By blocking the Oval Office and the Air Force One, the AP cannot access important news moments and ask questions in certain press supplies. It is also blocked by its role as part of the White House’s press pool, a rotating group of journalists, which will send the current updates of the President’s activities to a broader group of news organizations.

Lawyers of the Ministry of Justice, which the White House represents in the case, asked the judge not to intervene at this stage, and argued in court files that the prohibition had not affected the ability of the AP to report the president thoroughly. They found that his access now corresponds to other news organizations that did not enjoy the same access as before the ban.

The lawyer of Doj, Brian Hudak, said during the hearing on Monday: “The president can choose who to speak to.”

However, the judge did not seem to be true that the government was a member of the White House press pool, who was a sit-down interview with the commander-in-chief. He described the pool as a small group of journalists who “experience history”

The written legal arguments of the Ministry of Justice were presented to the court of Ed Martin, the preliminary US lawyer of Washington, DC. Martin was in the borehole of the courtroom on Monday, but had no arguments during the hearing.

In an explanation that X was published as a hearing, Martin described himself and his colleagues as “Trump’s lawyers” – a comment that strongly criticized that he abused the power of the Ministry of Justice.

“As President Trump’s lawyers, we are proud to protect his leadership as our president, and we stand vigilant against companies such as AP who refuse to put America in the first place,” the explanation said.

The communication director of the White House, Steven Cheung, had previously described the AP’s lawsuit as “light -hearted and demented” and claims that it was “nothing more than an obvious PR stunt that disguises itself as a case adaptation”.

Most other important news agencies still use “Gulf of Mexico”, although the AP has so far been the only outlet part of the press pool that has been picked out. The outlet journalists kept their white house press data.

Several news agencies, including those who are considered Trump’s media allies, have publicly supported the AP. The New York Times, NBC, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Newsmax and CNN signed in a joint letter to the White House in which the administration was asked to increase the ban immediately.

Although the AP has changed to Mount McKinley that Trump renamed Denali, she said that she would stick to the “Gulf of Mexico” because it was an international waters and other countries did not recognize the new name. As a global news agency with customers around the world, the AP said that he will continue to use the name “Golf of Mexico” in his reporting and in an influential style book name and at the same time recognize the new name “Golf of America”.

And in a friend of the course submitted on Monday, the correspondence association of the White House threw its support behind the AP and informed McFadden that Trump banned “The integrity of the Press Corps of the White House and its first line reporting threatened the discussion. American presidency. ”

During the first Trump administration, the White House revoked the press pass from the then CNN correspondent Jim Acosta. The network brought in a federal action and a judge quickly stood on the side of the dispute and led the White House to withdraw from the legal dispute for reasons of procedural reasons.

This story has been updated with additional details.