Can CNN beat the White House in court? Look to the case of a loner journalist named Robert Sherrill.

[Elderberry]

Washington Post By Isaac Stanley-Becker and Fred Barbash 11/14/2018

A disputatious reporter seeks access to the White House but is blocked by Secret Service. Debate ensues over the journalist’s tactics and whether he presents a physical threat more menacing than the pummeling that issues from his pen, or his microphone. The government doesn’t offer a clear account and is sued on First Amendment grounds.

CNN’s Jim Acosta isn’t the original protagonist in this drama, which is roiling Washington and drawing stern warnings from the likes of Bob Woodward. While the controversy, like so many others with President Trump at their center, appears to occupy uncharted territory, it actually doesn’t.

A case cited in the network’s complaint against Trump, as well as members of his administration and the Secret Service, points to an important precursor, which holds clues about the viability of CNN’s suit, filed Tuesday.

The case is Sherrill v. Knight, decided in 1977 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It’s still good law in the district where CNN filed its suit, to which the White House is supposed to respond by 11 a.m. Wednesday, according to an order from Timothy Kelly, a former attorney for the Senate Judiciary Committee who was named by Trump to the federal bench last year.

In the 1977 case, the court found that denial of White House credentials was a sufficiently grave infringement on the freedom of the press that it couldn’t just be done by fiat. It required, at the very least, “notice of the factual bases for denial, an opportunity for the applicant to respond” and “a final written statement of the reasons for denial.” Notably, the court prohibited “content-based criteria for press pass issuance.”

The critical finding, according to Mark H. Lynch of Covington & Burling, who argued the case before the D.C. Circuit, was this: Given the “important First Amendment rights implicated by refusal to grant White House press passes to bona fide Washington journalists,” as the court held, “such refusal must be based on a compelling governmental interest.”

“Under the circumstances of the Acosta denial, the government is not going to be able to meet that standard,” Lynch predicted in an email exchange with The Washington Post.

More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/14/can-cnn-beat-white-house-court-look-case-years-ago-loner-journalist-named-robert-sherrill/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.454eabee6a7c

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

So kick them all out.  That's fair.

[Frank Cannon]

Oh. DC Circuit ruling? Throw it in the garbage. We have a new Supreme Court Justice that would like to chime in on CNN and the media at large.....

[DB]

No one is denying CNN a seat at the White House press table.

It is denying it to Acosta for abuse of his position. He does not have the right to override other journalist time at the table.

[Dexter]

The White House is the president's home. Trump should be allowed to kick people out for even less, or nothing. I don't let annoying people into my home either.

[Wingnut]

Washington Post By Isaac Stanley-Becker and Fred Barbash 11/14/2018



The case is Sherrill v. Knight, decided in 1977 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It’s still good law in the district where CNN filed its suit, to which the White House is supposed to respond by 11 a.m. Wednesday, according to an order from Timothy Kelly, a former attorney for the Senate Judiciary Committee who was named by Trump to the federal bench last year.

In the 1977 case, the court found that denial of White House credentials was a sufficiently grave infringement on the freedom of the press that it couldn’t just be done by fiat. It required, at the very least, “notice of the factual bases for denial, an opportunity for the applicant to respond” and “a final written statement of the reasons for denial.” Notably, the court prohibited “content-based criteria for press pass issuance.”

This isn't 1977 anymore.  24 hour cable news didn't exist.  The ruling has no weight in todays world in regards to banning one ass hole from the press room.

[Dexter]

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2018/11/14/the_first_amendment_does_not_protect_what_acosta_did_459087.html

President Donald Trump will win the lawsuit that CNN filed against him on Tuesday after the White House revoked Jim Acosta’s press pass, both because the Constitution does not allow a federal court to issue this kind of order to the White House and because the First Amendment does not protect what Acosta did.

[SZonian]

Simple solution if the President loses in "court"...simply don't hold anymore press conferences.

Send out memos and let Sarah handle the idiots...she's proven way more than capable.  God bless that woman.

[libertybele]

Simple solution if the President loses in "court"...simply don't hold anymore press conferences.

Send out memos and let Sarah handle the idiots...she's proven way more than capable.  God bless that woman.

I thought she was leaving at the end of the year??

[SZonian]

I thought she was leaving at the end of the year??

Why would you go and rain (pi$$) on my parade like that?   

Love that woman's spunk, attitude and disdain for the childishness that is the "left".