.jpeg) |
| (Instagram) |
Donald Trump announced his media ban -- affecting CNN, MS NOW, and Politico -- while Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was out of town on Saturday. That likely is not a coincidence, according to a jointly published article at Daily Beast and Yahoo! News.
The news outlets began to fight back over the weekend, filing a joint lawsuit, stating that the selective ban was a "blatant violation" of the First Amendment. From a report at Associated Press (AP):
The administration’s announcement of the bans Friday and the White House’s subsequent actions over the weekend represented a clear escalation of Trump’s long-running efforts — in the courts and through administrative action — to restrict news coverage he finds objectionable or, in his words, “fake news.” They were also the latest test of First Amendment protections in the United States, where the government is constitutionally forbidden from restricting the press.
The Constitution, the banned news outlets said in their lawsuit, “does not allow a president or any other government official to deprive the press of their First Amendment rights and liberty and property interests with no notice or process based solely on his dislike of the content of their reporting.”On Monday morning, the banned TV networks were reporting from an intersection just outside the White House complex. Also Monday, CNN was removed from its pool duties, which are shared by the major networks. It had been scheduled to cover the president’s trip to New York. In an email, the TV pool, which consists of the five major networks, wrote that there would be no replacement coverage following the White House actions.
The three outlets filed the joint lawsuit two days after their reporters were blocked from the White House and prevented from doing their jobs. The reporters’ entry badges were disabled on Saturday, a day after Trump had suddenly announced he was barring the outlets because of reporting he found to be “fake news.”
This morning, the banned TV networks were reporting from an intersection just outside the White House complex. Also Monday, CNN was removed from its pool duties, which are shared by the major networks. It had been scheduled to cover the president’s trip to New York. In an email, the TV pool, which consists of the five major networks, wrote that there would be no replacement coverage following the White House actions.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. But on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote this morning that he “cherished” what he called a free press. As often is the case with court-related matters, Trump's statement indicates he is clueless about the law governing the press. Trump suggested that he, the president, gets to decide what is published and what is not. That, of course, is not how the U.S. system works -- as most middle-school students likely know by now. From the Trump statement:
“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” the president said in his post. “It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”
Somehow, America has allowed a man to take over our highest office, with the idea that the president determines what is "fake news," what is "totally out of control," and is a "threat to our national security." This is one of many signs that Trump wants to turn the U.S. into an authoritarian state along the lines of Putin's Russia. It's also a sign that Trump simply is not fit for his office -- or any office for that matter -- although no one in authority seems willing to do what it takes to get him out of power and end the monstrous damage he is doing to our democracy.
Trump's fitness for office, or lack thereof, seems to be running through the minds of his own staff members.
That was evident in a jointly published report at Daily Beast and Yahoo! News that suggested the absence of Chief of Staff Susie Wiles prompted Trump to announce his ill-considered media ban. Under the headline "White House staff blame media ban on president being left unsupervised," Evgenia Anasastakos writes:
Blindsided senior White House staffers learned of President Donald Trump's media ban at the same time as the rest of the country, a new report alleges.
Trump's directive to ban reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico came while Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was out of town, sources tell Politico, with many in the West Wing unaware of the move until they saw the president's Friday afternoon announcement on Truth Social.
Trump baselessly accused the trio of news organizations of reporting "LIES" but did not point to a particular article that pushed him over the edge. Sources tell Politico that the president has floated the idea of a media ban previously and decided to act on it while his top adviser was not in the building.
More than a dozen current and former Trump officials tell Politico that they were "puzzled by the development." The site added that others in the administration reached out unsolicited to say that the 80-year-old Trump's edict was a "head-scratcher."
That White House staffers say the president of the United States -- the so-called "Leader of the Free World" -- needs to be "supervised" to keep him from making rash decisions should be a "head-scratcher" to all Americans. It raises this question: Do Trump's own staffers suspect he is not fit for office unless Susie Wiles is around to keep him on track? Here is more from Evgenia Anasastakos about reporting from Daily Beast and Politico:
Sources tell (Politico) that Trump has also mentioned relocating the White House press to the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is part of the White House complex but would deny reporters direct access to the West Wing.
MS Now, CNN, and Politico each sent reporters to the White House on Saturday. White House security revoked their physical badges on arrival and denied them entry. Barred reporters for MS Now and CNN moved off the White House grounds and gave live segments from across the street.
"I attempted to scan my badge, which we have to do to be able to get into the White House grounds; it did not work," Gardner said on the air. "There was a red beeping light, and so the officer asked me to hand over my badge; he said that it was disabled."
A source close to the White House tells Politico that there have been discussions about expanding the ban to other outlets. Trump suggested Friday that The New York Times and The Washington Post may be future additions.
What happens when Susie Wiles returns to the Oval Office and informs the president, as seems likely, that she agrees with legal experts who say Trump's action was unwise, unconstitutional, and probably will be reversed in court? Will this be time for another TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) moment? Time will tell on that, but this clearly seems to be litigation that could, and should, be avoided. The clearest obstacle Trump's ban faces probably rests with "viewpoint discrimination, which Trump has pretty much admitted to, per the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Jameel Jaffer, the institute's executive director, states:
The First Amendment prohibits the president from punishing journalists because he doesn’t like their coverage, just as it prohibits him from punishing universities because he doesn’t like the courses they offer, or from punishing law firms because he doesn’t like the clients they represent. With so many courts having ruled against him on exactly this point, you’d think President Trump would have learned this lesson by now. If President Trump means to expel these news organizations from the White House press pool, his action is doubly unconstitutional because the press pool is a ‘public forum’ under the First Amendment, which means the president can’t exclude journalists from it on the basis of their viewpoints.
So far, Trump has shown no sign of chickening out on this one. Perhaps that is because the cost of going to court to defend a public policy that has no defense under the law typically is borne by taxpayers, folks like you and me. Lawsuits brought against Trump personally usually are financed by political action committees or similar support groups. In short, Trump loves to fight for "justice" when he doesn't have to pay for it. Here is more from the Daily Beast/Yahoo! report:
Despite criticisms from his own MAGA base that he is infringing upon the First Amendment, sources tell Politico that Trump intends for his ban of CNN, MS Now, and Politico reporters to be permanent.
"It's real and permanent as far as POTUS is concerned," a source told the site.
In their joint complaint, the three banned media outlets stated:
“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” they said. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference. . . .”
They say they’re being banned from doing their jobs at the White House “for one simple reason: (Trump) dislikes the content of the coverage of him and his administration.”
“President Trump has said in no uncertain terms that he would prefer only to be covered by news organizations and reporters who praise his administration,” says the complaint, filed in the name of the three outlets and three correspondents who were denied access Saturday.
In legal terms, that’s known as “viewpoint discrimination” — the government singling out specific media outlets for the content of what they say or publish. That legal principle is at issue in many of the court cases around Trump’s treatment of the media and would likely be at play this time.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, whom Trump nominated during his first term in the White House.
The head of the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) made it clear the stakes are high and filled with implications for foundational, constitutional freedoms -- the kind of long-settled issues that many Americans likely assumed never would be challenged in our lifetimes. But that was before Trump came along, with the idea that a president can rewrite the law in any way that pleases him:
The WHCA’s president, Jacqui Heinrich, called on the Trump administration to immediately restore the three outlets’ access. Heinrich is right because the White House has no case, and it does not merit going to court -- with taxpayers paying the bill that Trump seems determined to ring up.
Heinrich continued: “The implications extend beyond these organizations: a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future,” Heinrich said. “The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably.”
No comments:
Post a Comment