After Banishing Journalists for Writing ‘Purposely Negative’ Stories, Trump Invokes ‘National Security’

“Effective immediately,” President Donald Trump announced out of the blue on Friday, he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ [of] FAKE NEWS!” Now the government’s lawyers, in response to a lawsuit that the three news outlets filed on Monday, are scrambling to justify that act of pique on national security grounds.

On Tuesday night, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate filed a 19-page response to CNN et al.’s motion for a temporary restraining order, which U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly is considering at a hearing today. The plaintiffs argue that their sudden banishment violates due process and freedom of the press. Not so, Shumate says.

“The President concluded” that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico “have failed to maintain basic minimum ‘standards of professionalism and decorum expected of those given access to the White House Complex, including’ by ‘publishing sensitive or classified information,'” the brief avers. “The President’s actions must be sustained because the President has ‘compelling interest[s]’ in enforcing minimum standards for bona fide journalists and safeguarding national security information.”

In support of that claim, the brief cites three letters from the White House Press Office that purport to justify Trump’s decision. All of them are dated September 22, four days after the president banished CNN et al. and the day after they filed their lawsuit.

Those post-hoc justifications clearly do not meet the due process requirements that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has said apply when the government seeks to exclude credentialed journalists from the White House. Contrary to D.C. Circuit precedent, Trump did not give CNN et al. advance notice, a written explanation, or an opportunity to contest his reasons for banning them.

Those letters also contradict what Trump said when he announced the bans. “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America,” he declared on Truth Social last week. He subsequently told reporters he was punishing CNN et al. because he viewed their coverage as “purposely negative,” “one-sided,” and “never good.” They “want to try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration,” he complained.

“Why are you doing this ban now?” a reporter asked. Was there “a particular reason” or a “particular story” that prompted the decision?

“No, no,” Trump replied. “It’s really just cumulative stories over the last two years. You get sick of it.”

Contrary to that explanation, the letters that the government filed in response to CNN et al.’s lawsuit cite specific reasons and specific stories. The letters accuse all three organizations of “publishing sensitive or classified information” and “trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues.”

The CNN letter lists four examples. In January, it says, CNN disclosed “top-secret” information about the bunker beneath the ballroom that Trump is building on the site formerly occupied by the East Wing of the White House, which he demolished last fall. A July 27 report about the “munitions shortfall” caused by the U.S. war with Iran said the Trump administration was “struggling to reconcile exactly where things stand.” A month later, CNN reported that the Pentagon had used up “nearly 80%” of its interceptors, citing “multiple sources.” And last Friday, CNN reported that “outdated intelligence” resulted in the February 28 U.S. strike on an Iranian elementary school.

The MS NOW letter lists three offending stories: a May 6 report that the FBI had “launched a criminal leak investigation” focusing on Atlantic writer Sarah Fitzpatrick, a June 11 blog post quoting an unnamed “White House official” who said Trump had “underestimated the willingness of Iran to resume conflict,” and an August 6 story saying the Iran war had “significantly depleted” U.S. munitions. The Politico letter lists half a dozen examples, including an April 2025 report that White House officials were debating whether to lift sanctions on Russia, a May 12 story about the White House ballroom, an August 25 story about depleted munitions, and an August 28 story citing an anonymous source who said the “reduced U.S. military presence in the Pacific and in Europe” had “threatened the Pentagon’s influence around the world.”

All of this is standard journalism. But according to the letters, such reporting is dangerous because it “diverts White House resources and those of the national security team in particular.” When news outlets publish “sensitive security information,” the White House Press Office complains, those officials “must evaluate whether the leaked information is classified, the source of any leak, and the security implications of any such disclosure.” It adds that “the spread of misinformation, especially relating to national security, is a threat that undermines the President’s ability to safeguard the national security.”

Trump did not mention national security as a justification for banning CNN et al. until three days after he did it. “The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” he insisted in a Truth Social post on Monday, responding to the storm of criticism provoked by the ban. “It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”

Shumate aims to transform that afterthought into a rhetorical bomb that obliterates the constitutional concerns raised by Trump’s sanctions against CNN et al., which he explicitly said were driven by “purposely negative stories” that aimed to “diminish” him. Never mind about that, Shumate says: “The President’s actions were not retaliatory because the Government would have taken the same action anyway, notwithstanding Plaintiffs’ speech criticizing the President—indeed, the President has not revoked access [by] other outlets that have equally criticized the President.”

Not yet. But when Trump banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, he warned that “other Fake News Outlets” would be added to the list—an obvious effort to intimidate journalists who might be inclined to write stories that offend the president.

It seems unlikely that Kelly will be swayed by Trump’s belated invocation of national security. Back in 2018, the Trump appointee blocked the revocation of CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s White House press pass on due process grounds. The concerns that Kelly deemed compelling in that case are amplified by the peremptory deactivation of press passes for more than 60 journalists employed by three leading news organizations.

Shumate nevertheless argues that the plaintiffs “are unlikely to prevail on their due process claims” because “they have received adequate notice and post-deprivation process, including an opportunity to contest the President’s factual findings.” In reality, the plaintiffs did not receive any notice at all, the supposed “factual findings” were ginned up after the fact (a point that Kelly emphasized in Acosta’s case), and the news outlets therefore had no “opportunity” to “contest” those findings before their employees were stripped of their credentials.

As for CNN et al.’s First Amendment claims, Shumate argues that the D.C. Circuit erred in 1977, when it held that “the protection afforded newsgathering under the first amendment” means that access to “White House press facilities” cannot “be denied arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons.” Shumate disagrees, saying “access to the White House is a privilege, not a right.”

Even if the D.C. Circuit got it right, Shumate says, Trump has “compelling reasons” to exclude the plaintiffs from the White House. Trump “may lawfully deny access to Plaintiffs” because he “has concluded they fail to satisfy the minimum requirements of professionalism,” the brief says. They “have reported classified or sensitive information bearing on national security,” and Trump “determined” that they have thereby “failed to maintain minimum professional journalistic standards.”

The implications of that argument are sweeping, since journalists covering national security issues routinely rely on “classified or sensitive information.” By Shumate’s reasoning, all of those reporters could be denied access to the White House without implicating the First Amendment.

Whatever you think of that claim, it is clearly a cover for a decision that Trump made for different reasons. By his own account, Trump was “sick” of “one-sided” and “purposely negative” reporting that made him look bad. That is what he means when he refers to “fake news.” Whether or not that complaint is justified, dressing it up in national security garb cannot disguise the reality that the president is openly punishing journalists because he perceives them as biased against him, in the hope that they will “straighten themselves out.” As the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Seth Stern noted last week, “it’s difficult to imagine a more blatant violation of the First Amendment.”