CNN, MS NOW and Politico expand lawsuit against Trump White House, citing continued ‘viewpoint discrimination’

CNN, MS NOW and Politico have amended their lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s White House press ban, citing “continued retaliatory and viewpoint-discriminatory deprivation” by the Trump administration.

The three news outlets are once again accusing the administration of violating the First and Fifth Amendments.

The updates to the lawsuit concern the White House’s interference with the press pool, a decades-old tradition that has news outlets take turns covering the president in close quarters like Air Force One and the Oval Office.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has repeatedly excluded CNN and Politico from Trump’s Air Force One trips, even after a federal judge issued an order halting Trump’s broader original ban.

“To be clear,” the expanded lawsuit states, the news outlets “do not claim an unrestricted right to enter the Oval Office or travel aboard Air Force One. But once the White House opens those spaces to selected journalists for newsgathering and reporting, the White House may not exclude plaintiffs because it dislikes their coverage.”

Last week, the outside counsel for the three news outlets, Ted Boutrous, threatened further legal action if the White House continued to bar reporters from specific areas like Air Force One.

Boutrous asked for confirmation that the administration would “abandon any policy of excluding CNN from the Oval Office and Air Force One” and stop preventing assigned pool reporters from doing their duties. The administration did not respond.

So Wednesday afternoon’s court filing was the next step.

The amended complaint asks the court for another ruling in favor of the news outlets: “The court should declare unlawful the President’s ban of plaintiffs and the White House’s further unconstitutional actions, including its continued exclusions of plaintiffs from specific White House press areas for retaliatory and viewpoint-discriminatory reasons, and enter permanent injunctive relief in favor of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico.”

The amended complaint came two weeks after US District Judge Timothy P. Kelly granted a preliminary injunction restoring the outlets’ White House access, finding that Trump’s ban likely violated the First Amendment by discriminating against journalists based on their coverage of his administration.

The White House complied with the court’s order to reinstate journalists’ press credentials, but CNN, MS NOW and Politico say the administration has continued to retaliate against them by disrupting the press pool.

CNN says it has been barred from traveling aboard Air Force One on all six occasions when it was scheduled to serve as the designated TV network pooler since Trump announced the ban on September 18.

Politico has also been barred twice from its scheduled out-of-town pool assignments.

CNN、MS NOW 和 Politico 修改了针对唐纳德·特朗普总统白宫新闻禁令的诉讼，称特朗普政府“持续进行报复和歧视性剥夺”。

这三家新闻媒体再次指责政府违反了宪法第一修正案和第五修正案。

诉讼的最新进展涉及白宫对媒体记者团的干预，这是一项已有数十年历史的传统，新闻媒体轮流在空军一号和椭圆形办公室等近距离地点报道总统。

最近几周，特朗普政府多次将 CNN 和 Politico 排除在特朗普的空军一号出行之外，即便此前一名联邦法官已下令停止特朗普最初更广泛的禁令。

“需要明确的是，”扩大后的诉讼书中写道，“这些新闻媒体并非声称拥有不受限制地进入椭圆形办公室或乘坐空军一号的权利。但是，一旦白宫向选定的记者开放这些场所进行新闻采集和报道，白宫就不能因为不喜欢原告的报道而将他们排除在外。”

上周，这三家新闻机构的外部律师泰德·布特罗斯威胁说，如果白宫继续禁止记者进入空军一号等特定区域，他们将采取进一步的法律行动。

布特鲁斯要求政府确认是否会“放弃将CNN排除在椭圆形办公室和空军一号之外的任何政策”，并停止阻止指定的随行记者履行职责。政府方面没有回应。

因此，周三下午提交的法庭文件是下一步。

修改后的诉状请求法院再次作出有利于新闻媒体的裁决：“法院应宣布总统禁止原告进入白宫的行为以及白宫进一步的违宪行为（包括出于报复和观点歧视的原因，继续将原告排除在白宫特定新闻区域之外）为非法，并作出有利于 CNN、MS NOW 和 Politico 的永久禁令救济。”

两周前，美国地区法官蒂莫西·P·凯利 (Timothy P. Kelly) 颁布了初步禁令，恢复了这些媒体进入白宫的权限。凯利法官认为，特朗普的禁令可能违反了宪法第一修正案，因为它基于记者对其政府的报道而歧视他们。

白宫遵照法院命令恢复了记者的记者证，但 CNN、MS NOW 和 Politico 表示，政府继续通过扰乱记者团来报复他们。

CNN表示，自特朗普9月18日宣布禁令以来，该公司六次被安排作为指定电视网络记者团乘坐空军一号，但均被禁止登机。

Politico 还曾两次被禁止参加其预定的外地记者团采访任务。