Trump to be sued for ban of MS NOW, CNN, Politico from White House

MS NOW, CNN and Politico are set to sue President Donald Trump on Monday morning and to ask a federal judge to reverse his total ban on those three media outlets from the White House.

Journalists from the outlets were prevented from entering the White House on Saturday, a day after Trump announced he would bar them from working there.

“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the lawsuit says, arguing that the ban has already “severely impeded the ability of” the three outlets to cover Trump and his administration.

“Presidents from the earliest days of the Republic have disagreed with and complained about the tenor and content of press coverage of their administrations,” the civil complaint, set to be filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, notes.

But “the Constitution protects the liberty and property interests that news organizations and White House reporters have in their press credentials and the access those credentials afford them to cover the White House for the benefit of the public,” the suit says. “No official can deprive Plaintiffs of those interests on a whim — with no notice, no process, and no warning — as the President did here.”

Trump, in announcing the ban in a Truth Social post Friday, accused the outlets of writing fiction and lies about him, and warned, “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.” The president cited what he called “cumulative stories” by the three news organizations, adding, “You get sick of it.”

The suit alleges the ban violates the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution by failing to give the outlets advance notice and an opportunity to challenge it, without establishing clear standards for Trump’s decision.

The complaint also says the ban violates the Constitution’s First Amendment by retaliating “against protected newsgathering and speech.”

And it says the ban violates the First Amendment for a separate reason: it bars the three media outlets “from a nonpublic forum for unlawful reasons.” Those reasons include so-called viewpoint discrimination, or targeting the outlets for their perceived “motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective.”

In a joint statement on Monday, the three outlets said, “This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”

Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the statement said. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

The White House and the Department of…