The ruling

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore White House access for journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico while the outlets pursue their lawsuit over the ban. US District Judge Timothy Kelly issued the decision as a preliminary injunction, published late on Tuesday, 13 October. It blocks the administration from carrying out the 18 September decision to withdraw the three outlets' reporters' press credentials. The order stays in place until Kelly makes a final determination in the case or an appeals court steps in. It does not, however, require the administration to admit these reporters to the Oval Office or onto Air Force One, the two places from which CNN and Politico reporters had been excluded.

Why the judge sided with the outlets

In his 26-page ruling, Kelly wrote that the record contains practically nothing on national security that the court could point to in the documents behind the president's decision. He found no evidence that Trump had based the revocation on national security grounds from the start, and noted that the president had never directly said so himself. The judge wrote that Trump most likely barred the outlets because he believed their reporting was generally inaccurate and biased against him. Kelly concluded that this viewpoint-based action probably violated the First Amendment, and he also found that the reporters' Fifth Amendment rights were at stake because they received no advance notice before their passes were pulled. The judge additionally pointed to the president's own statements as evidence of retaliation. Kelly was appointed to the federal bench by Trump during the president's first term.

The ban and the earlier order

Trump withdrew the reporters' credentials on 18 September, and the Department of Justice later argued that the passes were revoked on national security grounds. On 24 September, Kelly issued an emergency order that temporarily restored access, and the latest ruling expands on that order. At an 8 October hearing, Theodore Boutrous, a lawyer for the three outlets, said Trump was seeking to "coerce better coverage". Trump had announced the ban by accusing the organisations of publishing falsehoods about him. He has long been a critic of legacy US media, has previously sought to limit access for certain organisations, and has launched a series of lawsuits against media companies.

Appeal and open questions

Government lawyers filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday, 14 October, challenging the order, according to Bloomberg. The Freedom of the Press Foundation welcomed the ruling, and its senior adviser for advocacy, Caitlin Vogus, said in a statement that the group had every reason to expect an appeal.

But this fight is far from over.

Under the order reported by Europa Press, the plaintiffs must post a symbolic bond of one dollar before 19 October. The injunction keeps the block on the ban in place unless an appeals court steps in. The order leaves access to the Oval Office and Air Force One unresolved, so the outlets' reporters remain barred from those locations for now.