White House pushes back against Jim Acosta’s lawsuit and claims ‘no journalist has a First Amendment right to enter’ as FOURTEEN news organizations line up to side with CNN
White House denied Acosta access last week and confiscated his ‘hard pass’ after a heated press-conference shouting match with Trump
The clash ended with brief physical contact with a female intern who tried to take the microphone
CNN sued on Tuesday on First Amendment grounds, claimed Acosta was denied a Fifth Amendent right to due process, and asked a judge for a restraining order
On Friday Trump told DailyMail.com as he left the White House that he hasn’t decided how long Acosta will be without credentials, and more bans may follow
The White House fired back in court on Wednesday, saying that reporters don’t have a First Amendment right to enter the White House on-demand
Reply brief says CNN still has about 50 employees with hard passes, and no one is stopping Acosta from appearing on the air
By DAVID MARTOSKO
DAILYMAIL.COM
14 November 2018
The White House fired a legal salvo at CNN on Wednesday, responding to a lawsuit the network filed after the Trump administration revoked the press credentials of its chief correspondent, Jim Acosta.
‘No journalist has a First Amendment right to enter the White House,’ the government argued in a filing to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
Trump, the administration claimed, doesn’t have to justify his decision constitutionally ‘whenever he exercises his discretion to deny an individual journalist one of the many hundreds of passes granting on-demand access to the White House complex.’
The court docket was updated just as a group news organizations, including the Associated Pres and the Trump-friendly Fox News Channel, said they would file a friend-of-the-court brief backing CNN.
The White House’s argument is centers on a reading of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that guarantees the freedom to publish, but not to attend White House functions on-demand.
‘The President and his staff have absolute discretion over which journalists they grant interviews to, as well as over which journalists they acknowledge at press events,’ Trump’s Justice Department lawyers argued.
‘That broad discretion necessarily includes discretion over which journalists receive on-demand access to the White House grounds and special access during White House travel for the purpose of asking questions of the President or his staff.’
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