A federal judge on Monday declined to immediately order the White House to restore the Associated Press' access to presidential events, saying the news organization had not demonstrated it had suffered any irreparable harm. But he urged the Trump administration to reconsider its two-week-old ban, saying that case law "is uniformly unhelpful to the White House," the AP reports. US District Judge Trevor N. McFadden's decision was only for the moment, however. He told attorneys for the Trump administration and the AP that the issue required more exploration before ruling.
McFadden peppered both sides with questions during arguments over a lawsuit the AP filed Friday saying that its First Amendment rights were being violated by the ban, which began gradually two weeks ago. President Trump said it was punishment for the agency's decision not to entirely follow his executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America."
- McFadden, discussing the composition of the "press pool" that is chosen by the White House Correspondents' Association, questioned why the government was obligated to follow those choices. "It feels a little odd that the White House is somehow bound by the decisions this private organization is making," the judge told AP attorneys.
- The judge also questioned the AP's noting of its longtime membership in the White House press pool. "Is this administration somehow bound by what happened with President McKinley?" he asked. But he noted that the correspondents' group had been tasked by the White House to choose the members of its pool.
- "The White House has accepted the correspondents' association to be the referee here, and has just discriminated against one organization. That does seem problematic," McFadden said in an exchange with government attorney Brian Hudak. Later, McFadden warned the government's attorney to reconsider its position, saying "case law in this circuit is uniformly unhelpful to the White House."
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