Breaking- Federal Judge orders WH to reinstate Acosta's Press Pass

[jmyrlefuller]

With all due respect, it’s not ridiculous, and it’s based on long-standing precedent.

Precedent is just circular reasoning.

[XenaLee]

Precedent is just circular reasoning.

And occasionally... those citing "precedent" to make their case fail to include certain crucial details that might preclude or disqualify that "precedent" from applying. 

[austingirl]

The WH nor any other Federal Government enitity does not get to pick and chose who covers them under the US Constitution..

Why this question ever went to court is baffling..

Acosta can cover the president without being in the same room. Why should he be allowed to lecture and argue instead of asking a question? I hope he is never called on again. And when he grandstands and interrupts and tries to take the mic, with the new rules, he'll be escorted out and it will stick.

[mountaineer]

He really does think he's the star of the show.

Kyle Morris   @RealKyleMorris
15h15 hours ago

CNN’s Jim Acosta actually walked up to reporters covering his return and asked, “Do you guys wanna ask a question or...?”

See also Harlan Hill's

tweet

[Cyber Liberty]

He really does think he's the star of the show.See also Harlan Hill's

tweet

He should enjoy his gloating while he can.

[Hoodat]

Kicking & Screaming: Journo Dragged From Near Air Force One
By CHRISTINA HOAG     |     Jul 16, 2009 at 9:26 PM



A reporter for a small newspaper was forcibly removed from a press area near Air Force One shortly before President Barack Obama arrived at Los Angeles International Airport to depart California early Thursday.

Airport security officers carried the woman away by the feet and arms as she protested her removal.

She later identified herself as Brenda Lee, a writer for the Georgia Informer in Macon and said she has White House press credentials. The newspaper's Web site says it is a monthly publication, and a Brenda Lee column is posted on it.

Calls to the newspaper and the White House press office were not immediately returned.  .  .  .

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/archive/Reporter-Dragged-Kicking-and-Screaming-From-Near-Air-Force-One-.html


My how the rules change when a Republican gets in the White House.

[Cyber Liberty]

Kicking & Screaming: Journo Dragged From Near Air Force One
By CHRISTINA HOAG     |     Jul 16, 2009 at 9:26 PM


My how the rules change when a Republican gets in the White House.

I've always said, every time  a Republican gets elected to office the press suddenly wakes up.  They had an eight-year nap, so we can't be surprised they're a little stiff.  They had to go through the same "morning coffee" when Bush stomped Gore.

[txradioguy]

In a letter to reporter Scott Powers last week, a spokeswoman for Vice President Joe Biden apologized to the Orlando Sentinel reporter for keeping him in a closet (or, as the spokeswoman described it, a "lack of a better hold room") during an event he was covering.

Powers, who was the designated pool reporter at a fundraiser for Biden and Florida Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), was told upon arrival at the event - hosted by philanthropist Alan Ginsburg at his home - that he would have to wait in a storage closet until the vice president arrived, according to an account by ABC News.

The vice president reportedly arrived about an hour later, at which point Powers was allowed to leave the closet and report on his and Nelson's comments. Afterward, he was escorted back into the closet until the motorcade had left the premises.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-team-apologizes-to-reporter-for-making-him-wait-in-a-closet/

[mountaineer]

... The New York Times gets it that Trump now has the upper hand in his battle with a media that wants to drive him from office:

    “This could backfire,” said William L. Youmans, a professor of media law at George Washington University. Mr. Acosta “gets his credential now, but it empowers the Trump administration to come up with conduct-based criteria.”

    “A ‘rudeness’ or ‘aggressive behavior’ policy would have a huge chilling effect, and would be much more damaging to the whole system,” Dr. Youmans added. “If it lowers the bar for pulling credentials, it’s a recipe for a more tepid press.”

More at "Trump announces solution to Acosta problem and now the media are stuck" at American Thinker

[Cyber Liberty]

More at "Trump announces solution to Acosta problem and now the media are stuck" at American Thinker

That's quite an admission on the part of NYT.  "We are nothing if we're not allowed to be disruptive and rude."

[the_doc]

I don't know.  They seem so impressed with their power and infallibility that they don't have to think much.

As I understand it, the judge sided with Acosta on the grounds that 1st Amendment rights (and "due process stuff," perhaps) implicitly demand that the White House have written rules for proper behavior in the White House. 

If that is his position, then the judge is a MORAL NINCOMPOOP, in my opinion.  He is a self-righteous LEGALIST who falsely invokes the Constitution under the assumption that must misapply it to reign in a tyrannical POTUS.  (Dear, dear.)  But since the POTUS is not behaving as a tyrant, the judge is.  The judge is snaky, not Solomonic. 

The President's position may be distasteful, but it is necessary.  The judge should have dismissed the case.  The matter was clearly none of his snotty business.  The President has the transcendental right to enforce even unwritten rules of decency and order in his own White House.

(I assume that Trump thought the guy he was appointing is a conservative;  perhaps the guy himself thinks he is a conservative.  But the judge is a actually the archenemy of true conservativism, i.e., the Constitutional kind.  He is legislating from the bench by ordering more regs from the Executive Branch. That is not a conservative approach.  It is part of the Creeping Destruction of our civil society.  It is ultimately anti-Christian--which is why it is happening so much in our day of pervasive reprobation.  And whether or not Trump is a genuine Christian, he is being mauled by MSM and by bad judges precisely because he identifies with Christians and presides accordingly.  The poor judge has not the faintest idea what he is doing.) 

***

At the bottom line, we have a lot of really bad conservatives in all branches of our government.  To borrow prince Hal's line, "The first thing we need to do is kill all the lawyers."

[mountaineer]

As I understand it, the judge sided with Acosta on the grounds that 1st Amendment rights (and "due process stuff," perhaps) implicitly demand that the White House have written rules for proper behavior in the White House. 

No, the First Amendment has nothing to do with due process. This was not decided on First Amendment grounds.

[Cyber Liberty]

No, the First Amendment has nothing to do with due process. This was not decided on First Amendment grounds.

In fact, the Judge stated in his decision this is not a First Amendment issue, but a due process issue.

[the_doc]

In fact, the Judge stated in his decision this is not a First Amendment issue, but a due process issue.

I don't care what the judge says.

If the plaintiff's special rights were not being violated by a process failure, then no special process was at issue, i.e. no tedious "process" was due.
.
The press pass did constitute a "right" for Acosta to be in the conference room.  That might sound like a special right indeed, but it was a sovereignly granted right--not an innate right for Acosta in particular, not a sacred/protected right that was merely formalized by the pass.  Unfortunately, the judge treated this "right" as a specially protected right precisely because Acosta was made a member of the White House PRESS corps.  In short, the case was implicitly being handled as a 1st Amendment case even though the judge tried to say otherwise.

The judge wound up on the wrong side by snarling issues together and pretending that he was not snarling issues together.  He's not a clear enough thinker to issue an unimpeachably honest ruling.  His ruling is stupid.  It is clearly not right for Trump not to summarily remove a disruptive jerk from the Press Corps.  (Heck, it one wants to talk about "process," how about the White House "process" of patiently tolerating Acosta's inarguably bad behavior for way too long?)

(By the way, does the White House now have to draft written rules that also say that a reporter is not allowed to chew tobacco and spit on the conference room floor?  Reductio ad absurdum.)

[Hoodat]

the judge treated this "right" as a specially protected right precisely because Acosta was made a member of the White House PRESS corps.  In short, the case was implicitly being handled as a 1st Amendment case

Uh, no.  There is nothing 'First Amendment' about a special pass being issued.

[Cyber Liberty]

So, Accostya has a special right to lecture instead of question, shout down others in the press and at the Lectern, and act like an all-around jerk (above and beyond what we usually desire of "reporters"). 

I stand corrected.

[Cyber Liberty]

Uh, no.  There is nothing 'First Amendment' about a special pass being issued.

Yes it is, because pot-stirrers insist on interpreting it that way.  With the state of Law as we know it, surely many others are making that exact tortured argument in order to muddy the waters.  As for the Judge, he was very clear about how his ruling should be interpreted.  Not a 1st Amendment issue.

[the_doc]

Uh, no.  There is nothing 'First Amendment' about a special pass being issued.

You're absolutely right about that.  But the judge WAS treating the pass as SPECIAL--triggering due process requirements (his ruling, that is) that should not have been triggered.

Legal smoke and mirrors are common in our courts.

[the_doc]

Yes it is, because pot-stirrers insist on interpreting it that way.  With the state of Law as we know it, surely many others are making that exact tortured argument in order to muddy the waters.  As for the Judge, he was very clear about how his ruling should be interpreted.  Not a 1st Amendment issue.

See my posts above.  If the judge was not treating it as a 1st Amendment issue--in spite of his denials--then Acosta had no special rights for due process to protect.

[Elderberry]

See my posts above.  If the judge was not treating it as a 1st Amendment issue--in spite of his denials--then Acosta had no special rights for due process to protect.

https://openjurist.org/569/f2d/124/sherrill-v-h-knight

The District Court based its requirement of a written decision upon its determination that denial of a White House press pass to a bona fide journalist violates the first amendment unless it furthers a compelling governmental interest identified by narrowly and specifically drawn standards.

[Cyber Liberty]

https://openjurist.org/569/f2d/124/sherrill-v-h-knight

The District Court based its requirement of a written decision upon its determination that denial of a White House press pass to a bona fide journalist violates the first amendment unless it furthers a compelling governmental interest identified by narrowly and specifically drawn standards.

Thanks for that.  Sherrill was the precedent used by this court. 

[Hoodat]

The District Court based its requirement of a written decision upon its determination that denial of a White House press pass to a bona fide journalist violates the first amendment unless it furthers a compelling governmental interest identified by narrowly and specifically drawn standards.

The First Amendment protects the people against one thing, and one thing only - an act of Congress.  And since there is no act of Congress at play here, there is no way in hell that this is a First Amendment issue.

[Cyber Liberty]

The First Amendment protects the people against one thing, and one thing only - an act of Congress.  And since there is no act of Congress at play here, there is no way in hell that this is a First Amendment issue.

In that Sherrill ruling the Judge referred to a "bona fide journalist."  Couldn't Trump just say that doesn't apply because Accostya is "fake news?"

[Hoodat]

I don't recall any 'due process' issues when they booted Helen Thomas from the White House Press Corps.  Has the Constitution changed since Trump took office?

[Elderberry]

Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection Files Amicus Brief on Behalf of Reporters Committee in CNN v. Trump

https://www.law.georgetown.edu/news/georgetown-laws-institute-for-constitutional-advocacy-and-protection-files-amicus-brief-on-behalf-of-reporters-committee-in-cnn-v-trump/

On Friday, November 16, Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia did so.

“Today, a major precedent was set for the future of a free press,” Georgetown Law’s ICAP tweeted. “It’s a win for [one] reporter, but most importantly a win for the Constitution & the enduring freedoms it grants us all.”

The amicus brief, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on November 13, asserted that the revocation of White House Correspondent Acosta’s press credentials violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and of the press and that the move could have a chilling effect on other journalists.

“Questioning our elected representatives is at the heart of our Constitution’s First Amendment protections; the Amendment specifically guards ‘the freedom of speech [and] of the press,’” said Visiting Professor Joshua Geltzer, who serves as ICAP’s executive director. “Protecting and encouraging a wide range of views, including vigorously questioning and even criticizing the government, is what our founders expected when they wrote the Constitution. And courts have repeatedly stepped in to defend the rights of journalists to ask those questions in the course of their constitutionally protected newsgathering.”

Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press — a nonprofit association of reporters and editors dedicated to defending the First Amendment and the newsgathering rights of the media — called the president’s revocation of Acosta’s credentials “out of line.”

“It’s decidedly out of step with the traditions of freedom of speech and of the press enshrined in our Constitution, at the heart of our democracy, and long respected by presidential administrations of both parties, even in moments of great tension between the president and the press,” Brown said. He noted that the actions come against “a backdrop of crackdowns on press freedoms” occurring in countries including Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey—“crackdowns characteristic of authoritarian governments that have contributed to degradations in democracy in the countries subjected to them.

More at link above.