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Free Speech

TRO Issued Ordering Reinstatement of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico White House Access

The court's rationale is that revoking reporters' passes  violated the Due Process Clause, given D.C. Circuit precedent on the subject; the court didn't reach the outlets' First Amendment arguments.

Eugene Volokh | 9.24.2026 1:38 AM

From Judge Timothy Kelly's TRO today in CNN, Inc. v. Trump:

On the afternoon of September 18, 2026, President Trump announced in a social media post that, "effective immediately," he was "banning" the news organizations CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO "from the White House." And those news organizations allege that over the weekend their reporters were denied access to the White House and had their "hard pass" press credentials deactivated. Plaintiffs—the three news organizations and three individual reporters—sue the President and several White House officials and move for a temporary restraining order, asking the Court to order the immediate reinstatement of their hard passes pending further proceedings. The Court's resolution of their Motion is dictated by the application of well-known D.C. Circuit precedent that this Court must faithfully apply. For the reasons explained below, the Court will grant the Motion….

Plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success, at least on their Fifth Amendment procedural due process claim. The merits of this claim are assessed in two steps: "the first asks whether there exists a liberty or property interest which has been interfered with by the State; the second examines whether the procedures attendant upon that deprivation were constitutionally sufficient." Plaintiffs have shown they are likely to succeed at both steps.

As for the first, the D.C. Circuit held in Sherrill v. Knight (D.C. Cir. 1977) that "the interest of a bona fide Washington correspondent in obtaining a White House press pass … undoubtedly qualifies as [a] liberty [interest] which may not be denied with-out due process of law under the fifth amendment." And if there were any doubt about what Sherill meant, the D.C. Circuit more recently reaffirmed this conclusion in Karem v. Trump (D.C. Cir. 2020), holding that "a duly issued hard........

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