After President Donald Trump banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House press pool, the outlets sued to regain access. Following this, Dan Greenberg, a senior legal fellow at the Cato Institute, released a statement:

Over and over again, the Trump White House has lawlessly attempted to deny journalists access to presidential press conferences. This time, journalists have been excluded because their coverage is allegedly ‘one-sided’ and ‘negative.’ Such efforts by the White House are illegal; they have failed in the past, and they will fail in the future.

To be sure, the President may choose to selectively exclude journalists from relatively small or secluded spaces, even if they are spaces where presidential communication occurs – for example, the Oval Office, Air Force One, or Mar-a-Lago. But there is no lawful basis to keep politically disfavored journalists out of the Brady Briefing Room or the East Room where major press conferences occur, and the journalists who are suing for access there – CNN, MS NOW, and Politico – will shortly win their suit. They are just as entitled as anyone else with a White House press pass to attend press conferences at those locations and to cover the White House.

To speak with Greenberg, contact Cato PR at pr@​cato.​org.