White House Defying Judge’s Order, News Outlets Allege

The White House is defying a judge’s order that it allow journalists from three outlets, including CNN, access to the White House, the outlets said in a court filing on Sept. 24.

“This morning journalists from each of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO attempted to enter the White House and were turned away. A Secret Service agent confiscated the hard pass of journalists from all three organizations,” the outlets said in a notice to the judge who handed down the order, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly.

They also said that Betsy Klein, a CNN reporter whose pass to cover the White House was confiscated over the weekend, requested her pass be returned, but her request was denied and she was not provided access to the White House.

Kelly, early on Thursday, issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration’s ban on the three news outlets from the White House, ruling that they were likely to succeed in their claim that their constitutional rights were violated by the ban, in part because they did not receive “fair notice.”

Kelly said that all the government officials named as defendants in the case, except for Trump, and all people acting in concert with them “shall immediately return, reinstate, and restore the White House ‘hard pass’ press credentials held by employees of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO that were revoked on or about September 18, 2026, until further Order of the Court or the expiration of this Temporary Restraining Order.”

Micah Stopperich, the White House director for press operations, told Kelly in a declaration in response to the notice from the outlets that White House operations personnel were notified at 7:10 a.m. that they needed to restore access to the affected reporters, and that the personnel soon began reinstating the revoked press passes.

The U.S. Secret Service indicated that the badges were turned back on at 9:07 a.m., he said, and the passes were then delivered to the White House entry gate for pickup by the press. They have been available since around 9:55 a.m., he said.

Badges that had been confiscated, meanwhile, were gathered and placed around 9:55 a.m. at the entry gate to the White House for press to pick up.

This is a developing story that will be updated.