Judge orders White House to return Jim Acosta’s press pass
By Brian Stelter, Marshall Cohen, David Shortell and Jessica Schneider, CNN
Updated 4:29 PM EST, Fri November 16, 2018
(CNN) CNN’s Jim Acosta has returned to his post at the White House following a court ruling that forced the Trump administration to reinstate his press pass.
Now President Trump is vowing to create “rules and regulations” for how White House reporters act. He says “you have to practice decorum” at the White House.
“It’s not a big deal,” Trump told Fox News in an interview on Friday. “What they said, though, is that we have to create rules and regulations for conduct, etcetera. We’re going to write them up. It’s not a big deal. If he misbehaves, we’ll throw him out or we’ll stop the news conference.”
Friday’s ruling by federal judge Timothy J. Kelly was an initial victory for CNN in its lawsuit against Trump and several top aides. The suit alleges that CNN and Acosta’s First and Fifth Amendment rights were violated by last week’s suspension of his press pass.
Kelly did not rule on the underlying case on Friday. But he granted CNN’s request for a temporary restraining order on Fifth Amendment grounds. And he said he believes that CNN and Acosta are likely to prevail in the case overall.
“Let’s go back to work,” Acosta said in brief comments outside the courthouse.
Later in the day he arrived at the White House and received his Secret Service “hard pass,” the pass that was taken from him nine days ago.
He is expected to appear on CNN for one of his usual live shots on Friday evening.
CNN v. Trump is an important test of press freedom in the US. Kelly, seemingly well aware of the high stakes, read his written opinion from the bench for nearly 20 minutes Friday morning. He sided with CNN on the basis of the suit’s Fifth Amendment claims, saying the White House did not provide Acosta with the due process required to legally revoke his press pass.
He left open the possibility that the White House could seek to revoke Acosta’s pass again if it provided due process.
That may be why Trump is talking about implementing “rules.”
Kelly went to great lengths to explain what his decision meant — and what it didn’t mean — to the attentive audience. He emphasized the “very limited” nature of the ruling. He said that while he may not agree with the underlying case law that CNN’s argument was based on, he had to follow it. “I’ve read the case closely,” he said. “Whether it’s what I agree with, that’s a different story. But I must apply precedent as I see it.”
Kelly criticized last week’s blacklisting of Acosta as “shrouded in mystery,” noting that the Justice Department lawyer in the case couldn’t even say who ordered the decision.
But he also said that he was not making a judgment on the First Amendment claims that CNN and Acosta have made.
Despite that, Sanders said in her statement, “Today, the court made clear that there is no absolute First Amendment right to access the White House.”
The judge did not make that clear.
But he did note that Sanders’ initial claim that Acosta had inappropriately touched a White House intern was “likely untrue” and “partly based on evidence of questionable accuracy.” Acosta held onto a microphone when an intern tried to take it away during a presidential news conference last week. Later that day, the correspondent’s access to the White House was suspended.
Kelly noted that Trump may never call on Acosta again. But that’s not relevant to this decision, he said. There needs to be due process regarding the pass.
Kelly was appointed to the bench by Trump last year, and confirmed with bipartisan support in the Senate. CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said the ruling “strikes me as an extremely savvy and wise resolution of this case.”
Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, one of the six defendants in the case, did not specify whether the administration would continue to fight the lawsuit in court. The legal battle may continue for months.
But Sanders said in a statement that “we will also further develop rules and processes to ensure fair and orderly press conferences in the future. There must be decorum at the White House.”
Trump said the same thing during a Q&A with reporters in the Oval Office.
“People have to behave,” he said, when asked about the administration’s defeat in court.
“If they,” meaning reporters like Acosta, “don’t listen to the rules and regulations, we’ll end up back in court and we’ll win. But more importantly, we’ll just leave,” meaning, stop taking questions from the press. “And then you won’t be very happy. Because we do get good ratings.”
Ted Boutrous, one of the outside lawyers representing CNN in the case, said in an interview that the network is open to a resolution that could avoid further legal action.
“We want to just simply move forward and let CNN and Jim Acosta gather news and report it,” Boutrous said.
But what if the administration tries to implement intense restrictions on the press corps, or tries to revoke other press passes?
“I think, you know, we’re ready to litigate as long as we have to to protect these First Amendment rights, to ask the court to declare rules of the road going forward,” Boutrous said.
In a statement about the ruling, CNN said, “We are gratified with this result and we look forward to a full resolution in the coming days. Our sincere thanks to all who have supported not just CNN, but a free, strong and independent American press.”
Numerous press freedom advocacy groups also cheered the ruling.
“Today, a major precedent was set for the future of a free press. It is a win for one reporter, but most importantly a win for the Constitution and the enduring freedoms it grants us all,” the Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection said.
And the ACLU said “the White House surely hoped that expelling a reporter would deter forceful questioning, but the court’s ruling will have the opposite effect.”
Most of the country’s major news organizations have supported CNN’s lawsuit, recognizing that the White House may try to ban other reporters in the future.
CNN has asked the court for “permanent relief,” meaning a declaration from the judge that Trump’s revocation of Acosta’s press pass was unconstitutional. This legal conclusion could protect other reporters from retaliation by the administration.
But the judge will rule on all of that later. Further hearings are likely to take place in the next few weeks, according to CNN’s lawyers.
The White House took the unprecedented step of suspending Acosta’s access after he had a combative exchange with Trump at last week’s post-midterms press conference. CNN privately sought a resolution for several days before filing suit on Tuesday.
The defendants include Trump, Sanders, and chief of staff John Kelly.
Judge Kelly heard oral arguments from both sides on Wednesday afternoon. Kelly asked tough questions of both sides, drilling particularly deep into some of CNN’s arguments.
Then he said he would issue a ruling Thursday afternoon. He later postponed it until Friday morning, leaving both sides wondering about the reason for the delay.
In public, the White House continued to argue that Acosta deserves to be blacklisted because he was too aggressive at the press conference.
Speaking with Robert Costa at a Washington Post Live event on Thursday, White House communications official Mercedes Schlapp said press conferences have a “certain decorum,” and suggested that Acosta violated that. “In that particular incident, we weren’t going to tolerate the bad behavior of this one reporter,” she said. Schlapp repeated the “bad behavior” claim several times.
When Costa asked if the White House is considering yanking other press passes. Schlapp said “I’m not going to get into any internal deliberations that are happening.”
In court on Wednesday, Justice Department lawyer James Burnham argued that the Trump White House has the legal right to kick out any reporter at any time for any reason — a position that is a dramatic break from decades of tradition.
While responding to a hypothetical from Kelly, Burnham said that it would be perfectly legal for the White House to revoke a journalist’s press pass if it didn’t agree with their reporting. “As a matter of law… yes,” he said.
The White House Correspondents’ Association — which represents reporters from scores of different outlets — said the government’s stance is “wrong” and “dangerous.”
“Simply stated,” the association’s lawyers wrote in a brief on Thursday, “if the President were to have the absolute discretion to strip a correspondent of a hard pass, the chilling effect would be severe and the First Amendment protections afforded journalists to gather and report news on the activities on the President would be largely eviscerated.”
On Friday the correspondents’ association welcomed Kelly’s ruling and said “we thank all of the news outlets and individual reporters who stood up in recent days for the vital role a free and independent news media plays in our republic.”
View on CNN
© 2018 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Another set back for Trump. Doesent look well, all things considered.
And now this:
POLITICS
Lawyers Challenge Matthew Whitaker’s Appointment As Acting Attorney General At The Supreme Court
“Because Whitaker’s appointment does not satisfy the Appointments Clause, it is unlawful, and he cannot serve as Acting Attorney General,” the lawyers wrote.
Chris Geidner
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Updated on November 16, 2018.
Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images
Acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker.
Lawyers on Friday brought a challenge to the validity of President Donald Trump’s appointment of acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker to the Supreme Court.
Questions have surrounded the legality of Whitaker’s appointment since the day after the midterm elections when Trump forced out the former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and announced on Twitter that Whitaker was his choice to be the acting attorney general.
“Because Whitaker’s appointment does not satisfy the Appointments Clause, it is unlawful, and he cannot serve as Acting Attorney General,” the lawyers wrote in Friday evening’s filing.
The issue is being brought to the Supreme Court in Barry Michaels’ pending petition for certiorari in a case challenging the federal law barring possession of a gun by a felon.
In addition to Michael Zapin, Michaels’ lawyer on previous filings, Tom Goldstein and his colleagues at Goldstein Russell joined in Friday’s filing.
Goldstein and the firm earlier this week had joined the Maryland attorney general in challenging Whitaker’s appointment in a different case before a trial judge.
They argued in that filing that the appointment violates both a federal law setting the order of succession at the Justice Department and the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, which requires the Senate to provide advice and consent on principal officers of executive branch departments.
In Friday’s filing at the Supreme Court, the lawyers made similar arguments, specifically raising the issue by asking the court to declare that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and not Whitaker, should be substituted as the respondent in the case for those reasons.
Additionally, the lawyers also ask the justices to take up the case without waiting for lower courts to rule, as it ordinarily would, because the issue is “a pure question of law” and could arise in “thousands” of cases.
Noting the many “personal responsibilities” of the attorney general, they warn, “If this Court declines to resolve this question immediately and instead determines several months in the future that Mr. Whitaker’s appointment was always invalid, then ‘unwinding’ all of those personal orders would be a fraught and disruptive exercise that could embroil the federal courts in innumerable collateral disputes.”
Note:
It is an interesting question at this point, to ask whether introducing identity politics at.this point would be appropriate, since Trumpism is really nothing but a reactive reductionism, however it may have not.gone down into an Epistomological abyss to warrant it As of yet. However here is a bibliography worth looking into:
A large bibliography can be noted in request, per this suggestion.
since Trumpism is really nothing but a reactive reductionism, however it may have not.gone down into an Epistomological abyss to warrant it As of yet. However , that is Trump’s strength : an ideological neo-Kantian presumption where any and all proofs presented, dilute into pragmatic-utalitarian levels of acceptance.
Where the will is to power over other opinions, this may be a testament to early twentieth century philosophycal undercurrents. Lets see how it ultimately plays out, my guess is a discreet compromise.
The President’s defenders are lining up:
POLITICO
Republicans battle to defend Trump from threat of impeachment
Lawmakers are jockeying for the top GOP spot on the House Judiciary Committee, which will be ground zero for Democratic attacks on the president.
By KYLE CHENEY 11/18/2018 06:59 AM EST
Jim Jordan
President Donald Trump has already given Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) a boost by pushing him for a top committee spot. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
Facebook Twitter Google + Email Print
The audition to become President Donald Trump’s most visible defender in Congress — and lead the fight against any impeachment proceedings — is in full swing.
One of Trump’s fiercest allies, Rep. Jim Jordan, on Friday began flirting openly with a bid to serve as the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, the panel where a flood of Democratic-led investigations, and potential impeachment, will begin.
“We’re still looking at it,” the Ohio Republican said when asked if he would run for the post. “I’ve always been one who’s going to fight to get the truth out no matter what role I have. So we’ll just wait and see.”
Republicans’ pick will be critical for Trump and his party. The new House Democratic majority has detailed a long list of targets for investigation, from Trump’s business entanglements to his decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey. Even after Republicans were routed in the midterms, GOP leaders are vowing to aggressively defend against Democratic probes, which they’ve labeled “presidential harassment.”
The top slot on the Judiciary Committee also comes with a powerful policy portfolio. The committee has jurisdiction over immigration, gun control and abortion, as well as oversight of the Justice Department and FBI. But with Capitol Hill polarized over the president, the next ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee will likely be spending more time fighting for Trump than legislating with Democrats. It’s a reality that is already coloring the jockeying for the job.
Trump, in fact, has already given Jordan a boost — calling incoming GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and urging him to ensure Jordan, a longtime McCarthy adversary, got a top committee post next year. That led to whispers and speculation that Trump wanted Jordan in the Judiciary slot, though Trump has declined to explicitly endorse him.
“I would like to see Jim in a high position ’cause he deserves it,” Trump told the Daily Caller on Wednesday. “He’s fantastic, but I haven’t gotten into the endorsement or not.”
Jordan’s interest in the role has scrambled the calculus for the other GOP lawmakers eyeing the job, including Rep. Doug Collins, who’s widely perceived as the front-runner.
Collins has spent a year maneuvering meticulously to become the lead Republican on the committee. The affable Georgian has crisscrossed the country fundraising for colleagues, forged relationships with Republicans in House leadership and showcased his legislative chops by partnering with Democrats to advance high profile legislation.
But since Election Day, when rumors of Jordan’s interest in the position began to surface, Collins has taken pains to emphasize his role as a zealous Trump supporter.
Collins’ allies note that he has taken on the Justice Department over GOP allegations that senior officials were biased against Trump — an issue Jordan has championed for a year. And Collins himself says that even as he considers ways to collaborate with Democrats, he’ll relish the chance to beat back any “overreach” in their investigations of the president.
“I can fight as hard as anyone on this stuff,” he said in an interview.
And as for Jordan’s reputation as a pro-Trump street fighter, Collins said he’s better equipped to be a strategic defender of the president. He’s been on the Rules Committee, he noted, which gives him expertise on potential tactics to fight Democratic probes.
“You don’t always have to be the loudest voice in the room,” he said. “You just have to be the smartest voice in the room.”
Jordan would likely face an uphill climb to win the post — even if he got an explicit push from Trump. That’s because the coveted slot is awarded by the leadership-dominated GOP Steering Committee, which will meet later this month to nominate committee leaders.
The committee’s recommendations are also ratified by the full House GOP. Jordan, vice chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus, has alienated elements of the Republican Conference with hard-line tactics over the years. His opposition to McCarthy’s 2015 bid to become speaker helped doom the California Republican’s chances.
But Jordan’s looming presence appears to have shifted the Judiciary Committee race.
Collins is working double-time to emphasize his track record of support for Trump’s priorities. The day after Democrats won the majority, Collins’ first statement was an attack on incoming Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).
“Our counterparts across the aisle are giddy about running roughshod over process and weaponizing taxpayer resources against President Trump, the Commander in Chief Americans elected,” he wrote. “We’re here to remind Mr. Nadler that a House majority doesn’t give liberals license to chase political vendettas.”
The tone was a turnabout for Collins, who had spent much of the year highlighting his outreach to Democrats on a bill to modernize copyright laws for the music industry and, more recently, forge a hard-won deal on prison reform legislation — which Trump himself embraced last week and highlighted at a White House press conference with Collins standing at his right shoulder.
It was the second time Collins was at the White House for a legislative event this year. He stood alongside the president for the signing of the bipartisan Music Modernization Act.
Despite his harsh words for Nadler, Collins said he and the liberal New Yorker get along.
“We do have a good relationship in the sense that we can talk,” he said. Collins added that he sees potential for bipartisan cooperation on issues like intellectual property, criminal justice reform and privacy rights.
Though Collins appears to have an inside track for the post, he also must overcome a bid by a more senior GOP lawmaker, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), who has been touting his more than two decades of time on the committee in a pitch to colleagues.
Chabot is one of two remaining House members who helped manage the GOP impeachment of President Bill Clinton, experience he said would be invaluable if Democrats try to impeach Trump in the next Congress.
In a phone interview, Chabot noted that he’s the dean of the Ohio delegation — the one from which Jordan also hails — and has worked to support Republicans in the pivotal swing state. He’s also got a long track record of legislating, noting that he helped pass abortion restrictions and victims’ rights legislation and oversaw hearings on reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. And he noted that he has known and served on the committee with Nadler for decades.
Despite Collins’ relationships, Chabot said he’s been talking with members of the GOP Steering Committee “off and on for three or four months” and says his chances to win the post are “excellent.”
Story Continued Below
Chabot, too, noted Jordan’s potential entry into the contest. He said he likes Jordan and that they generally vote the same way on legislation. “Didn’t Nancy Pelosi say, ‘Come on in the water’s warm?’” Chabot joked, referencing the Democratic leader’s comments welcoming a potential challenge to her position.
“If we have a dozen people who jump in,” he said, “I would stack my credentials and my bona fides against anybody else.”
Democrats are warily eyeing the emerging contest for who Nadler may be squaring off against next year.
Nadler has often noted that the committee attracts some of the most ideological members of Congress because its roster of divisive issues repels moderates and lawmakers in swing districts.
“While the Judiciary Committee is usually where you find the most partisan debate, some members engage in it more than others,” said a Democratic committee staffer. “Hopefully there can be cooperation and opportunities to work together in the new Congress with whomever the Republicans elect.”
Nadler, though, has foreshadowed an aggressive stance that’s sure to mean confrontation with Trump and his supporters.
“@RealDonaldTrump may not like it,” he tweeted just hours after Democrats secured the House majority, “but he and his administration will be held accountable to our laws and to the American people.”