6 citizens sue Trump over White House bans on news outlets

Six individual citizens — a civics teacher, a legal journalist, a student journalist, a human rights advocate, a historian and a media watchdog — are suing the president and Trump administration officials over the White House’s bans and restrictions on the press, according to the lawsuit filed Monday.

The complaint, which named President Trump alongside White House communications director Steven Cheung and chief of staff Susie Wiles, argues new White House policy surrounding press access “deprives the public of the reporting of those organizations, and it inevitably deprives them of the independent reporting of other news organizations as well.”

“Every journalist who reports from the White House must now account for the possibility that a critical or ill-advised word about the president may result in their access being summarily restricted or revoked,” the lawsuit continued.

The 26-page filing asserted that the “threat of being targeted in the future is likely to distort the reporting of news organizations today,” adding that “protecting the public’s right to independent reporting requires broader equitable relief.”

The lawsuit asked the courts to “adequately protect the right to receive independent White House reporting” and declare the White House’s policy “unconstitutional because it imposes restrictions on a limited public forum that are viewpoint-based and unreasonable.”

A White House official told The Hill: “No person may demand access to the Oval Office.”

“Media that pedal misinformation and defamation are completely capable of reporting their manufactured stories from directly outside,” the official added.

“The White House cannot decide what information Americans receive by punishing critical reporting,” Katie Fallow, the deputy litigation director at Knight First Amendment Institute, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the six plaintiffs, said in a press release .

“When the White House expels reporters because of their coverage and threatens others with expulsion, it isn’t just the press that suffers—the public loses access to independent reporting and gets something closer to government propaganda,” Fallow continued.

The lawsuit references multiple attempts by the Trump administration to restrict press access to the White House and the Pentagon, including the decision to bar Politico, CNN and MS NOW from the White House in September.

A federal judge issued a block on Trump’s ban of the three major news organizations, ruling the outlets were likely not given enough due process.

The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg recently reported that he was removed from his print press pool duties by the White House after the president lashed out at the reporter in the Oval Office.

Feinberg along with some CNN reporters have also stated they were still unable to join the press pool on Air Force One.