Associated Press Sues 3 Trump Officials Over Access Ban
The AP claims the ban violates the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The Associated Press has sued three people in President Donald Trump’s administration over the White House banning the wire service from accessing presidential events: Susan Wiles, chief of staff, Taylor Budowich, deputy chief of staff, and Karoline Leavitt, press secretary.
The White House issued the ban when the AP refused to use “Gulf of America” instead of “Gulf of Mexico.”
The AP claims the ban violates the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment:
The ban violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As the D.C. Circuit has made clear, journalists’ “first amendment interest” in access to the White House “undoubtedly qualifies as liberty which may not be denied without due process of law under the fifth amendment.” Sherrill v. Knight, 569 F.2d 124, 130-31 (D.C. Cir. 1977). Defendants gave the AP no prior or written notice of, and no formal opportunity to challenge, their arbitrary determination that the AP would indefinitely lose access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other limited areas as a member of the press pool – as well as access to larger locations open to a wider group of journalists and reporters with White House press credentials – unless the AP adopted the Administration’s preferred language in its reporting.
The ban also violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The D.C. Circuit has made clear that denying journalists access to White House press events “based upon the content of the journalist’s speech” is “prohibited under the first amendment.” Sherrill, 569 F.2d at 129. Having opened the White House and certain areas to the press, the First Amendment “requires that this access not be denied arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons.” Ateba v. Jean-Pierre, 706 F. Supp. 3d 63, 75-76 (D.D.C. 2023) (quoting Sherrill, 569 F.2d at 129) (emphasis in original), appeal argued, No. 24-5004 (D.C. Cir. Oct. 15, 2024). Defendants have not provided, nor could they provide, any compelling reason for their arbitrary denial of the AP’s access. Rather, Defendants’ actions are impermissibly based on their dislike of the content of the AP’s expression and what they perceive as the AP’s viewpoint reflected in the content of its expression. The White House ban of the AP also constitutes impermissible retaliation, as it was instituted to punish the AP for its constitutionally protected speech in ways that would chill the speech of a reasonable person of ordinary firmness.
The administration implemented the ban on February 11.
The ban became indefinite on February 14 after the AP continued not to use Gulf of America.
“To date, the AP’s reporters and photographers remain banned from the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other locations open not only to pool members, but also to a larger group of journalists with White House press credentials,” according to the lawsuit.
The AP claimed Wiles told the wire service “that the White House was targeting the AP because its Stylebook ‘is used by many as a standard for writing and editing,’ and that it ‘advises journalists, scholars and classrooms around our country.'”
Wiles added that the administrations remains ‘”hopeful that the name of the [Gulf] will be appropriately reflected in the Stylebook where American audiences are concerned,’ implying that the AP could change its guidance as to American audiences to resolve the issue and restore its access.”
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Comments
Good luck with that lawsuit. You took money from USAID to lie about conservative news organizations, Doctors trying to warn about covid shots, Wuhan lab leak, etc.. The ap is a paid to deceive and lie. They are not a news organization.
It would be interesting to argue along those lines in court. Maybe not a great idea from a legal stand point but it would be fun to see the AP humiliated that way.
It’s not going to happen but the government could argue that AP is a propaganda arm of the US government by way of USAID and the CIA and not a news organization. As proof the Director of the CIA could testify “Of course they are, we pay them well.”
“News organizations” don’t have different rights from anyone else. So saying that they’re not one doesn’t change anything.
But of course that’s not what they claim. They claim to have a special constitutional status, and some courts have been too willing to go along with it.
If access is what the AP wants, allow them to dial in or zoom in on muted lines.
I don’t get it. What’s keeping Associated Press from making up stories like they always have? Yes, I have a history with AP.
If you’re not at the event you’re supposedly reporting, it’s more difficult to make up a story about what happened there. You need to be there in order to credibly lie about what you saw.
It’s the administration’s speech, not AP’s, that’s in question, and the administration is not suing.
AP is free to publish what they want subject to the usual rules.
Hey! We ENTITLED!
“We want our privileges back!”
All AP has to do is rollover and beg like I have taught my Rottweilers
I’m a little baffled by this. What right does the AP have to enter the WH? Does every American have that right or does the 1st Amendment only apply to them? To a broader point, what the hell does the 1st Amendment have to do with anything. The WH isn’t trying to censor them or tell them what they can say, they can print anything they want.
The news industry has for decades been on a campaign to convince people that it has a special status, that “the freedom of the press” refers to it, that it is a “fourth estate” of our system of government (though not one reporter in ten could tell you what the first three estates are). It’s wrong.
The Secret Service can say they are not cleared to board AF1.
All security clearances will have to be reviewed by the New FBI.
Any organization that has employed a member of Hamas should be denied clearance.
The next thing you know they will sue because they are never going to get called upon again to ask a question again.
And if they are, the answer will always be “42.”
Henry, I got it, but I think your answer, although undeniably correct, is going to be a bit too subtle for a lot of us here:
“The number 42 is especially significant to fans of science fiction novelist Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” because that number is the answer given by a supercomputer to “the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.”
And… MIT agrees
Mathematics researcher Drew Sutherland helps solve decades-old sum-of-three-cubes puzzle, with help from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
https://news.mit.edu/2019/answer-life-universe-and-everything-sum-three-cubes-mathematics-0910
There is no 1st Amendment right to access.
If there were, what about all the news organizations and independent journalists who can’t get WH access? Have their rights been injured for for never having had access? Access to the WH Is limited as a matter of practicality, some must be excluded while others are included. By having been “included” does the AP have special rights above those who have never been included?
The WH, the Pentagon, Congress, and anywhere else the media has access all need monthly lotteries. Winners in one month’s lotteries being automatically excluded from the next month’s lottery. No special privileges.
Yeah, I don’t get the lawsuit other than they think they are somehow more special than the thousands of other journalists that can’t get WH access.
LMAO. ROFL. LOL, even.
There is no violation of the first amendment. They can lie the same as they always have. They just can’t do it from the Oval Office or Air Force one.
What happened when they kicked out Jim Acosta? Didn’t some court say the WH had to let him back in? I can’t remember….
Yes, the court ruled that the existing system of press passes gave holders a property interest in them, which is protected by the fifth amendment like any other property. It pointed out that it doesn’t have to be like that, and the White House can restructure it so it isn’t like that, but the White House just took the loss and went chasing after the next shiny object.
Changing the name of the Gulf was an ill-advised stunt, and denying AP access b/c the AP wouldn’t go along with it was even more foolish.
It’s way funner than “How many lights are there?”
It’s trolling them, dumbass and it’s giving them so much different stuff to gripe about that they can’t concentrate on any one thing. It’s like when you’re in a fight and you keep hitting the guy and he doesn’t have time to recenter himself before you hit him again. Hit fast keep him off balance keep them on defense
LOL. More mush from the wimp, as usual.
I suggest you review Rules 4-6 from “Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.”
And then, just for the sugar rush, review Rule 13.
The concern troll is concerned. Again.
Those are assertions. What’s the evidence to back up the assertions you make? These decisions seem to PO all the right people so that’s one point in favor of them.
Is it petty? Sure but no more so than the constant long-standing demands from leftist wokiestas that sports team mascots be changed, that various commercial logos be discarded, that we mandate monthly celebrations of various interest groups, that the cosplay Cray Cray Tranny must be encouraged/accepted and their seemingly infinite parade of pronouns must be adopted.
I was wondering where all the single downvotes were coming from.
AP can get their news from the net, like all the other startups.
How about a system of no physical access, just a feed to which everyone (and I mean “everyone”) has access. All journalists registered to do so can ask questions back up the feed, and the questions are anonymized. The spox on the other end will choose which questions are answered and which are ignored. Everyone gets access and nobody’s questions are answered or ignored due to the identity of the person asking.
In theory good, but the problem is of course that an administration could rig the selection of question which are answered or ignored… and we’re back under the Biden administration
You and I and every other Citizen is just as much a ‘journalist’ under 1A as any ‘news’ org. No WH is required to hold any briefing other than a State of the Union along with occasionally sending out officials to testify to Congress.
The real issue is the self entitled attitude of AP and other ‘news’ organizations. They have mistaken historical practice for holy writ that they seem to believe grants them an unquestioned elevated level of access to govt officials.
The obvious solution is for the WH to stop doing daily briefings and kick all press out of the WH. They have no right to be there and when they complain Trump can tell them to thank the AP.
Although the 1A does guarantee freedom of the press, the myth of the “impartial press” is a 20th century construct.
Used to be understood that journalism, at least as practiced by American newspapers was ALWAYS slanted one way or another. Everyone knew the Times-Picayune was a Democrat paper while the Globe was Republican, and so on.
The myth of the impartial press is a pernicious one, since its meant to obscure the actual ideological bent of those doing the reporting. People are led to believe that they’re hearing “truth” instead of somebody’s political opinion of the truth, i.e. propaganda.
It has also led to far to much reverence for these journalists, as though they occupy some special pinnacle of the First Amendment, as evidenced by these courts declaring special rights of access for the Acostas of the nation.
Thankfully, we have been liberated from this impartiality myth and reverence of the Press, entirely due to the internet and more recently by the Musk ownership of X
The AP collaborated with the Nazis
And here is where the dog lies buried, to borrow a Yiddishism. It’s true that when the president “opens the White House and certain areas to the news industry” then he can’t discriminate among members of that industry based on their protected speech. But nothing compels the president to do so in the first place.
This was the issue in the court decision in the first Trump administration, when Jim Acosta’s press pass was taken. (I think it was him.) Having established press passes as a thing, he had a fifth amendment right not to have it taken away arbitrarily, and a first amendment right not to have it taken for his protected speech. But the judge in that decision basically drew the administration a map for how it could achieve what it wanted. But instead it just dropped the matter.
The key is to abolish the current system entirely. The president is no longer “opening the White House” or any other area. Instead he will invite certain people whom he likes to enter. He will not invite those he doesn’t like. No one is entitled to an invitation. And these invitations will either be for one time use, or at the president’s pleasure.
But it will be clear that this is not a system; those invited are invited as individuals, or perhaps their organizations are invited to send a representative, just as might happen for a party. And it will be clear that no fifth amendment interest can be attached to these invitations, because there are no rights involved.
You might tell your neighbor “Hey, any time you see we’re having a party, just come over”, but that doesn’t give him any kind of property right, and you can revoke the invitation whenever you like. And it certainly doesn’t carry over to the guy who buys your house.
this clown show since Jan. has been twilight zone stuff.
But one of ‘the moron’s ‘ greatest hits has been the epically important insistence that Gulf of Mexico be changed to Gulf of America. LOLOLOL
Course we a know the conman is really good at one thing. Knowing his racist base. Hey – immigrants are poisoning our blood , right?