(Adnkronos) – CNN, Politico and MS Now have been readmitted to the White House on an indefinite basis. Federal judge Timothy Kelly issued an order preventing President Donald Trump from excluding those outlets from the White House while their lawsuit over access rights proceeds. “There is virtually nothing pertaining to national security in the materials related to the president’s decision to revoke the petitioners’ access that the Court can rely on,” Kelly wrote in his 26-page ruling. The judge sided with the news organizations, finding that Trump had used national security reasons as a pretext to revoke the journalists’ credentials, thereby infringing on their freedom of speech and their right to due process.
“It is likely that President Trump barred the plaintiffs from access to the White House because he believes their reporting is generally inaccurate and biased against him,” Kelly wrote, concluding that the decision violated the journalists’ rights under the First and Fifth Amendments.
Under the order, the news organizations may access the White House until the underlying legal case challenging the ban is resolved. The ruling does not require the Trump administration to grant these outlets access to the Oval Office or Air Force One, from which reporters for CNN and Politico had been excluded.