Trump has a history of showing disdain for court orders, but the processing of press credentials, more than defiance, probably caused delay for journalists returning from media ban

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An Associated Press survey over the first 15 months of Donald Trump's second term as president shows his administration ignored or violated court orders at least 31 times. When a federal judge granted a temporary injunction early Thursday morning that immediately lifted a White House ban on journalists at three prominent news outlets, reporters from the outlets (CNN, MS NOW, and Politico) said they still were being denied access even after the ban had been lifted. That caused some observers familiar with the administration's disdain for court orders to wonder if recent history was repeating itself.

Our research indicates that it probably was a delay in processing new press credentials, not defiance, that caused the delay. A report from USA Today and Yahoo! News has details:

All three media outlets that President Donald Trump banned from the White House were allowed back in Sept. 24 after a judge ruled that the revocation of their credentials probably violated the Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, had ordered the administration to respond by 12:30 p.m. ET. CNN, MS NOW and Politico announced that their reporters were let back in just after noon, though many of them were initially denied access in the morning.

Micah Stopperich, director of White House press operations, submitted a statement to the court that the press credentials were restored Thursday morning and available for retrieval before 10 a.m. 

The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) had a harsh reaction to yesterday morning's events, calling the original ban an "unconstitutional crackdown" and stating that the administration openly defied the court by continuing to deny access to the networks. The foundation issued a statement under the headline "White House defies judge who smacked down media ban": 

Hours after Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., delivered a resounding defeat to President Trump early this morning, restraining his administration from barring CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House and holding that the ban is likely unconstitutional, the administration defied the order by continuing to deny access to the networks.

Kelly held that the press met the “high bar” to show that the ban likely violated the Fifth Amendment’s protections for due process. He also rejected the administration’s argument that “national security” concerns justified the ban, noting that the news stories the administration pointed to are “routine” and that there is no precedent for applying laws prohibiting disclosure of classified information to reporters. 

But after Kelly’s ruling, and in spite of the temporary restraining order entered by the court, Politico, CNN, and MSNOW reported that some of their reporters were denied access to the White House and some had their press credentials confiscated. 

Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for the FPF, issued the following statement:

“The administration was rightly given the back of the hand by Judge Kelly for claiming routine reports harm ‘national security,’ but court orders are just paper unless they’re enforced. Enough is enough. Government officials who continue to deny journalists’ access to the White House in defiance of Kelly’s order should be held in contempt.

“And it’s long past time for judges to start aggressively sanctioning DOJ lawyers when they make frivolous national security arguments to turn Trump’s petty grievances against the press into government policy. That way, we won’t get to the point where Secret Service agents are defying court orders to carry out the president’s authoritarian whims.

“The Pentagon Papers case famously rejected a prior restraint aimed at specific documents the government claimed posed national security risks, and Trump himself lost two cases in which he tried to similarly ban reporters in his first term. Anyone who argues ‘national security’ are magic words justifying banning three entire news outlets from the White House should be not just laughed out of court but sanctioned.

“Trump’s own announcement of the ban admitted it was about coverage he didn’t like. The reports the government cited are years old and one was even based on a briefing from the vice president. Trump beats up on the free press not because of national security but because he’s terrified for the public to see what he and his administration are up to in the people’s house behind closed doors, whether it’s letting classified tech go missing or almost starting a war based on an AI hallucination.

“Those are the stories you won’t see on Trump TV. They bolster national security by exposing real threats to the homeland — government malfeasance and incompetence. Everyone involved in this multipronged and apparently ongoing attack on the Constitution must be held accountable.”

You can read Judge Kelly’s full order here.

Wayne Unger, associate professor of law at Quinnipiac University, writes at The Conversation under the headline "How due process, not the First Amendment, got the White House ban on reporters blocked in court." Unger notes that Trump is an old hand when it comes to attacking the rights of a free press:

This was not Trump’s first attempt at banning journalists from the White House. During his first term, he sought to ban CNN’s Jim Acosta by revoking his credentials following a contentious news conference about the 2018 midterm elections.

In that conflict, CNN filed a lawsuit, arguing that, “If left unchallenged, the actions of the White House would create a dangerous chilling effect for any journalist who covers our elected officials.”

Journalism organizations also responded. The Committee to Protect Journalists, the Radio Television Digital News Association and even Acosta’s peers at The Daily Caller – a right-leaning news outlet – condemned the White House ban.

Judge Kelly also is an old hand, having handled the Acosta case. Unger writes:

At the time, Kelly granted CNN a temporary injunction – reinstating Acosta’s press pass. The Trump administration later restored Acosta’s credentials, and CNN dropped its lawsuit.

Many commentators and members of the press have called Trump’s latest ban on the three news organizations a violation of the First Amendment.

 The case, however, goes beyond that issue, Unger notes:

White House Correspondents’ Association President Jacqui Heinrich said on X that revoking access for journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico “violates the First Amendment.”

Even George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who staunchly supports Republicans and frequently criticizes the press, said on X that the ban “would be an assault on long-honored principles of a free press.” 

As Turley and many others have argued, Trump’s ban is almost certainly unconstitutional under the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Media law professor Frank LoMonte argued in 2018, “The First Amendment guarantees all Americans freedom to speak and publish without government interference.”

But they may be missing a crucial point. In fact, there’s more than one constitutional right involved in such a case. Kelly primarily based his 2018 ruling on the reporter’s Fifth Amendment rights to due process, not on the First Amendment. He relied on due process again in ordering access temporarily restored for CNN, MS NOW and Politico.

In my view as a constitutional law professor, it is less clear whether the press has a constitutional right of access to the White House even though past presidents have honored and respected the press’s access to the executive branch.

While several Supreme Court cases, such as Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, unequivocally provide the press with a right of access to criminal trials, there is no Supreme Court precedent that specifically provides a clear constitutional right of access to the White House. 

In one case from 1977, Sherrill v. Knight, Robert Sherrill, the Washington correspondent for The Nation, was – after holding press passes over several years – denied a press pass because the Secret Service advised he should not be given one. The Secret Service refused to disclose their justification.

Sherrill sued, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the Secret Service cannot deny a White House press pass absent “narrow and specific standards by which applications are to be judged.”

The court required the White House to provide the press with “notice of the factual bases for denial, an opportunity for (them) to respond to these, and a final written statement of the reasons for denial (of a press pass).”

In the court’s view, these requirements – notice and an opportunity to rebut the bases for the denial of a press pass – are protected by two constitutional guarantees working together, the press protections in the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment’s protections from arbitrary deprivations of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” 

In other words, before the federal government can deprive an individual of their life, liberty or property, the federal government must provide that individual with due process, whose purpose is widely accepted as preventing “arbitrary governmental actions.” 

There are a number of court decisions relevant to the journalists’ latest lawsuit, filed Sept. 21, 2026.

Among them is Mathews v. Eldridge from 1976, in which the Supreme Court stated that due process is flexible depending on the extent of the liberty or property interest at stake. But in general, the justices said, due process requires the government to provide notice to the individual and an opportunity for the individual to present their case before the deprivation occurs.

This nuance – the First and Fifth Amendment working in tandem – is what most commentators and critics are missing in their response to the recent ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico. In fact, these outlets collectively lead with their claim that the Trump administration violated their Fifth Amendment right to due process in their lawsuit to block Trump’s ban.

“Even if attending a White House event is not a constitutionally guaranteed right, that doesn’t mean the government is free to take it away as punishment,” Prof. Frank LoMonte argued in 2018. 

(Editor's Note: Those who are interested in the intersection of journalism and academia might want to check out The Conversation. It was launched in 2011 in Melbourne, Australia, and co-founder Andrew Jaspan first discussed his idea with a vice chancellor at the University of Melbourne. Jaspan envisioned the University as a "giant newsroom," with academics and researchers collaboratively providing expert, informed content that engaged with the news cycle and major issues in current affairs. The project received financial support from Melbourne University, along with three other Australian universities. 

The company has grown to include more than 150 employees and produces six international editions. Subject areas include politics, society,, health, science, and the environment. As of 2018, 36 percent of its readership was in Australia, 29 percent in the United States.)