Judge orders Trump White House to restore AP access...

by Ella Lee

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to restore the Associated Press’s access to key White House spaces after it exiled AP reporters over the organization’s refusal to use “Gulf of America” in its popular stylebook.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, an appointee of President Trump, directed the White House to resume allowing the AP into the Oval Office, Air Force One and other limited spaces when they’re made available to other press pool members.

The judge also granted the AP’s request for returned access to events open to all credentialed White House reporters, though it listed several caveats.

“This injunction does not limit the various permissible reasons the Government may have for excluding journalists from limited-access events. It does not mandate that all eligible journalists, or indeed any journalists at all, be given access to the President or nonpublic government spaces. It does not prohibit government officials from freely choosing which journalists to sit down with for interviews or which ones’ questions they answer. And it certainly does not prevent senior officials from publicly expressing their own views,” McFadden wrote.

“No, the Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” he wrote. “The Constitution requires no less.”

The AP sued three top White House officials earlier this year after its journalists were banned from the Oval Office and Air Force One because the outlet refused to change its stylebook guidelines to use “Gulf of America” after Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico.

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Scores of news organizations use the AP Stylebook for spelling, grammar and guidelines on how to refer to certain people and places, so that such references are widely understood in the U.S. and globally.

Charles Tobin, a lawyer for the AP, said during a hearing last week that the news organization was in the “penalty box” for crossing Trump, which he called “abject retaliation.”

“The White House hasn’t hidden that,” Tobin said. “They’ve doubled down.”

He warned that the AP’s continued exclusion from the press pool — the small group of journalists who document the president each day — could have a chilling effect on the rest of the news industry, even if AP’s own reporters wouldn’t say the president’s “bullying” had chilled them because of their commitment to independent journalism.

An AP reporter and photographer has traditionally been part of the president’s press pool every day, both at the White House and when the president is traveling.

DOJ lawyer Brian Hudak said the AP is still “eligible” to be selected for the press pool; its reporters just weren’t being selected, because they “refuse to adhere to what the president believes is the law.”

“There isn’t a right for the AP to have the White House agree with its news,” said DOJ lawyer Brian Hudak.

Two AP journalists took the stand during the March 27 hearing, detailing what they called “diminished” and delayed reporting because of the ban.

Evan Vucci, the AP’s top photographer in Washington, testified that he’s gone from “being in every single event to not being able to do anything.” AP chief White House correspondent Zeke Miller said the outlet has been “barred time and again because of our journalism.”

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