Associated Press Seeks New Court Order To Restore White House Access

The Associated Press is asking a federal judge to enforce his order that the Trump White House had to end its ban on the wire service because it refused to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America in style guidance.

In a federal court filing this morning, the AP‘s attorneys request “the Court’s immediate assistance in enforcing” the judge’s injunction order.

The filing comes a day after the White House announced a new policy in which a designated print wire service slot has been removed from the pool altogether. Instead, the White House said that print pool reporters will be part of a general rotation of two slots designated for those journalists.

Read the AP’s request on Trump White House access.

In its filing, the AP said that the new White House policy is a “clear violation” of a federal judge’s order barring Trump and his aides from engaging in viewpoint discrimination.

“This new policy declares, in clear violation of the Court’s Injunction Order, that ‘[t]he President retains absolute discretion over access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other comparably sensitive spaces,’” the AP’s attorneys, led by Charles Tobin, wrote.

The AP noted that it was excluded again today from the pool, while its photographer continued to be passed over for four photo seats, which continued to be assigned “exclusively to AFP, Getty, The New York Times, and Reuters.”

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ruled on April 8 that the Trump team’s ban on the AP was a violation of the First Amendment, as it was for the reason that the news organization wouldn’t switch to the Gulf of America reference. The judge ordered that the White House “immediately rescind the denial of the AP’s access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other limited spaces based on the AP’s viewpoint when such spaces are made open to other members of the White House press pool.”

His order went into effect on Monday, but the AP was excluded from the pool covering Trump’s meeting with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele. An AP print reporter was allowed into an East Room event on Tuesday that was open to all pre-credentialed media, but McFadden’s order covers access to the smaller spaces, like the Oval Office, that are limited to the dozen or so journalists in the pool.

Earlier on Tuesday, after the AP was excluded from the pool, Tobin wrote to the government’s attorney, “Under a non-discriminatory system, the AP should have been selected for either the wire or photo pool, or both, by today.”