U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a temporary restraining order early Thursday, September 24, requiring the reinstatement of affected reporters' permanent White House press credentials. The order prevents the administration from enforcing the restrictions for 14 days unless the court directs otherwise.
Kelly found that the organizations were likely to succeed on their constitutional claims. In particular, he questioned the justification for removing their credentials without adequate procedural protections and found insufficient evidence to support the government's national security argument. The decision does not finally resolve the lawsuit.
Judge orders immediate restoration of White House credentials
The temporary order requires the administration officials named as defendants, along with their agents and representatives, to restore the White House hard-pass credentials held by journalists employed by CNN, MS NOW and Politico. The order excludes Trump personally from the directive addressed to the defendants.
A hard pass is the permanent credential used by journalists who regularly cover the White House. Unlike temporary admission for a particular event, it allows credentialed reporters to access the complex without applying for a separate pass on each visit.
The distinction matters because the restrictions affected the reporters' ability to enter their regular workplace and perform assignments from inside the White House.
The court's directive concerns those previously held credentials. It should not be interpreted as an order requiring officials to admit every journalist to every presidential event or as a final decision about all future White House access policies.
According to Reuters, Kelly also rejected the contention that restoring the passes during litigation would jeopardize national security. The judge found that the factual record did not substantiate the government's explanation.
He contrasted that argument with Trump's public statements criticizing the outlets' reporting. The president had accused the three organizations of publishing false or misleading coverage when announcing the restrictions.
The White House and representatives of the three organizations had not immediately responded to Reuters' requests for comment following the decision.
How the September 18 ban reached federal court
The dispute developed over six days, from Trump's initial announcement to the temporary judicial intervention.
On September 18, Trump said CNN, MS NOW and Politico would be barred from the White House, citing his objections to their reporting. The following morning, reporters from the affected organizations were denied entry, and their existing credentials were deactivated or confiscated.
Among the journalists affected were CNN's Betsy Klein, MS NOW's Akayla Gardner and Politico's Cheyenne Haslett. Their loss of access directly affected the organizations' regular coverage of the administration.
On September 21, the three organizations filed a joint lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. They argued that the exclusion violated First Amendment protections for speech and the press, as well as their Fifth Amendment due process rights.
The case, Cable News Network, Inc. et al. v. Trump et al., was assigned civil action number 1:26-cv-03287. Alongside the three companies, the plaintiffs include the three affected journalists.
The complaint names Trump, White House communications director Steven Cheung, Secret Service director Sean Curran and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles among the defendants.
The plaintiffs sought an urgent court order rather than waiting for the lawsuit to reach a final judgment. Their request asked the judge to halt enforcement of the ban and immediately restore the credentials.
A hearing took place on September 23. Kelly questioned whether the White House had provided the journalists with a meaningful opportunity to challenge their exclusion before it took effect.
The judge issued temporary relief the next day, September 24. The sequence establishes the present procedural status: access has been ordered restored, but the underlying constitutional claims remain in litigation.
Why earlier court decisions matter to the dispute
The controversy turns partly on the difference between the government's authority to control access to a secure presidential facility and the constitutional protections that apply when existing press credentials are withdrawn.
The Justice Department argued that White House access is a privilege rather than an entitlement. Its lawyers maintained that the president had authority to suspend the organizations' access and argued that letters subsequently sent to the outlets provided a sufficient explanation.
The plaintiffs disputed that position. They argued that the government could not remove their access because it objected to the substance or viewpoint of their reporting, and that the process used to revoke the passes was constitutionally inadequate.
Two earlier federal appellate decisions provide important legal background.
In Sherrill v. Knight, decided in 1977, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit considered a journalist's unsuccessful application for a White House press pass.
The court recognized that presidential security can justify restrictions. Nevertheless, it held that officials must apply meaningful standards and provide procedural protections when denying credentials to an otherwise eligible journalist.
Those protections include notice of the factual basis for a denial, an opportunity to respond and a written explanation of the decision. The court grounded these requirements in the interaction between First Amendment interests and Fifth Amendment due process.
The second relevant appellate precedent is Karem v. Trump, decided in 2020.
That case concerned the attempted 30-day suspension of journalist Brian Karem's White House hard pass following a confrontation at a 2019 event. The appeals court upheld a preliminary injunction because Karem was likely to succeed on his due process claim concerning inadequate notice of the potential sanction.
The court did not hold that the White House lacked authority to regulate journalist conduct. Rather, it addressed the constitutional requirements for exercising that authority in the circumstances before it.
Kelly referred to earlier appellate decisions during the September 23 hearing. The principal issue was not whether journalists possess unrestricted access to the White House, but whether the government followed the constitutionally required process when withdrawing established credentials.
That distinction also explains why the temporary ruling does not settle every question in the present lawsuit.
National security argument faces judicial scrutiny
The administration's national security explanation became a central issue in the proceedings.
Trump's public announcement had focused on what he characterized as inaccurate and negative reporting by the three news organizations. Justice Department lawyers later defended the removal of their credentials by invoking security concerns.
Kelly found that the record lacked factual support for the proposition that restoring the journalists' passes during the legal challenge would endanger national security.
The ruling addressed the evidentiary support for the government's explanation in this case. It did not establish that the Secret Service or White House could never restrict access for legitimate security reasons.
The timing of the administration's explanation also received attention.
According to Reuters, a government lawyer argued that letters sent to the organizations on September 22 supplied sufficient notice. Kelly questioned that position because the letters followed both the credential revocations and the filing of the lawsuit.
The sequence is relevant to the Fifth Amendment claim: an explanation supplied after a decision has taken effect is not necessarily equivalent to advance notice and an opportunity to contest the proposed action.
The judge's assessment was made at a preliminary stage. Further proceedings may examine the legal arguments, factual record and appropriate scope of any continuing relief.
How the ban affected pooled presidential coverage
The dispute extended beyond the three organizations' individual reporting arrangements.
White House journalists use a pooled coverage system to ensure that a smaller rotating group can report on presidential activities when space or logistical constraints prevent the entire press corps from attending.
Pool members share their reporting, photographs or video with other participating news organizations. The arrangement makes coverage available more broadly than would be possible if only reporters physically present could document an event.
The system is particularly important when the president travels or when an event allows only limited media access.
Following the ban, the major television networks participating in the White House pool coordinated a suspension of pooled coverage.
ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News were involved in the response. Their action meant that the dispute affected the availability of shared television coverage, not simply the ability of three organizations to enter the White House.
The remaining networks declined to replace CNN in certain coverage assignments after its journalists were excluded.
The three organizations were not entirely prevented from reporting on the president.
During Trump's visit to the United Nations in New York, journalists from the banned outlets continued working with media credentials issued by the United Nations.
That distinction illustrates the geographical and institutional scope of the dispute: the restrictions concerned White House access, not the journalists' general ability to publish news or attend events operated by other institutions.
Press organizations support the constitutional challenge
The legal proceedings also attracted support from other news organizations and groups advocating press freedom.
Reuters reported that a coalition including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Reuters, Fox News and The Washington Post submitted a supporting legal brief.
The coalition argued that excluding journalists because of perceived editorial viewpoints raises constitutional concerns extending beyond the three plaintiffs.
The brief was presented in support of the organizations' legal position; it was not itself a judicial finding.
Other news organizations have expressed concerns about the implications of restrictions based on editorial content. The White House Correspondents' Association called for the affected outlets' access to be restored.
The administration, meanwhile, maintained that admission to the White House is subject to presidential authority.
Those competing positions distinguish the larger dispute over press access from the narrower procedural question resolved by Thursday's temporary order.
The 14-day order and the unresolved lawsuit
Kelly's ruling provides immediate but limited relief.
The administration must comply with the temporary restraining order while it remains in effect. The court may modify that order, and subsequent proceedings will determine whether the plaintiffs receive longer-lasting relief.
The specified 14-day period does not establish an automatic final outcome. Nor does it mean that the organizations' legal claims will necessarily be fully resolved before that period ends.
The next developments will depend on further court action, including any additional applications made by the parties.
For CNN, MS NOW and Politico, the immediate practical consequence is the court-ordered return of their White House hard passes.
For the administration, the decision temporarily restricts enforcement of the September 18 ban while the court considers its constitutional basis.
The case remains an active test of how the government may administer access to the White House while observing constitutional protections for journalists who regularly cover the presidency.
As of the September 24 ruling, the central question has not received a final answer: whether the administration's withdrawal of these particular credentials violated the First and Fifth Amendments.