Donald Trump speaks to reporters accompanied by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Burgum’s wife Kathryn Burgum, aboard Air Force One where Trump signed a proclamation declaring Feb. 9 Gulf of America Day, as he travels from West Palm Beach, Fla. to New Orleans. (AP Photo)
A US Justice Department lawyer told a federal appeals court on Monday that President Donald Trump acted lawfully when he barred Associated Press journalists from the White House Oval Office and other spaces, arguing that constitutional protections for press freedom are not at issue.
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit heard arguments in an appeal by Trump’s administration of a judge’s ruling that he unlawfully retaliated against the AP because it refused in its news coverage to call the Gulf of Mexico by the Republican president’s preferred name: the Gulf of America. The three-judge panel did not issue a ruling from the bench.
Justice Department lawyer Yaakov Roth told the court that the AP does not have a right under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections for press freedom to what the White House has called special access to non-public areas.
“The president routinely invites Republicans and not Democrats into the Oval Office for ceremonies,” Roth said during the arguments. “Nobody thinks that he has to extend those invitations on a viewpoint-neutral basis. For the same reasons he can invite favored reporters and not disfavored reporters to watch that ceremony in the Oval Office.”
Charles Tobin, a lawyer for the AP, countered that “the First Amendment does not stop at the Oval Office door.”
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Tobain argued that because the White House authorized a press pool with access to the Oval Office, it cannot exclude news organizations based on reporting Trump disfavors.
In his April ruling, US District Judge Trevor McFadden said the AP was entitled to a preliminary injunction in its favor. McFadden, who is a Trump judicial appointee, ordered the White House to immediately let AP journalists return to the Oval Office and other spaces to cover news events.
“We strongly believe this case could have much wider implications, not only for other news organizations, but for anyone in America,” an AP spokesperson said on Monday. “Those ripples are becoming more evident since we first took this case to court.”
The DC Circuit in June paused the judge’s injunction while it considered the Trump administration’s appeal, an incremental setback for the news organization.
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Trump signed an executive order in February directing the US Interior Department to change the name of the body of water to the Gulf of America.
The AP, citing editorial standards, said it would continue to use the gulf’s established name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.
The White House responded by limiting the AP’s access to press gatherings, calling the news agency’s decision divisive and misinformation.
The AP sued three senior Trump aides in February, alleging the restrictions were an attempt to coerce the press into using the administration’s preferred language in violation of constitutional protections for both free speech and due process.
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The administration in April removed wire services, including Reuters and the AP, from the permanent “pool” of reporters covering the president, although it allows those outlets to participate on a sporadic basis.
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