Associated Press, Trump argue Oval Office access in federal appeals court | Freedom of the Press News

The Associated Press (AP) and the Trump administration are back before a United States federal appeals court in their fight over media access.

The AP argued on Monday that a news outlet should not be punished for its point of view, and the White House insisted that the president should determine who can question him in the Oval Office.

In February, AP sued three officials from the administration of US President Donald Trump, including White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, after its reporters were barred from the “pool” of journalists who follow the president up close.

The administration’s action was, it said, in response to an institutional decision by AP to continue using the term “Gulf of Mexico” as its default style after Trump renamed it the “Gulf of America”.

The case has wound its way through federal district court and, more recently, federal appellate court throughout the year.

In court, the administration said it is up to the White House to determine the makeup of “pools” that cover the president in places where space is limited. And he can reward or punish reporters with access in these cases in the same way he does in granting interviews, Trump’s team argued.

The AP says that if journalists are invited to cover an event on a pool basis — such as last week when the president had meetings in the Oval Office with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani — it cannot discriminate on the basis of a news organization’s freedom of speech.

“The First Amendment does not stop at the Oval Office door,” said Charles Tobin, the attorney representing the AP.

Since the dispute began, the White House has given Associated Press writers sporadic access to limited-space events at the White House. AP photographers have received much more frequent access. Tobin argued the White House has hurt the AP’s business with its new policy; for years, AP journalists had been virtually always included in these pool events.

But in its brief supporting its own position, the administration said that “to the extent that the AP built a business model that depended on the assumption that it would maintain this favored-nation status in perpetuity, that is hardly the government’s fault.”

The AP reports and produces for thousands of news outlets and other organisations around the world.

Tobin made his argument before three judges who illustrated that the AP faces an uphill battle in this fight, despite the lower court ruling. Two of them, Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, are Trump appointees who voted against the AP as part of a separate appellate panel this past spring. And they expressed skepticism Monday about how a rule could be put in place that satisfies the outlet’s concerns.

“You would eventually need an injunction against the president for this to work, don’t you,” Rao asked him. It’s extremely rare for a judge to issue an injunction against a president; they generally act against people who work for the chief executive.

“How would we decide what’s a ‘pool’ event and an individual journalist’s event?” Rao asked.

Yaakov Roth, the principal deputy assistant attorney general arguing for the Trump administration, also wondered about rules put in place limiting a president’s ability to invite people to see him at the White House. “Nobody is going to come up here and say that the president has to invite equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats to the White House Christmas party,” he said.

Roth was questioned by the third judge on the panel, Robert Wilkins, who asked if the administration could bar a group of citizens from Kansas who had bought tickets to tour the White House if a Trump appointee discovered one of them had posted something on social media critical of the president.

“Woe to the public,” said Wilkins, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

Julie Pace, AP’s executive editor, wrote in an op-ed piece published Monday morning that the question of access is not just about AP; it’s about people’s access to the government that works for them.

“When we talk about press freedom, we are really talking about your freedom. Reporters ask questions, photographers take pictures, and video journalists record history on your behalf to ensure that you are informed about the things you don’t have the time to unearth, watch or learn about for yourself,” Pace wrote.

“Letting the government control which journalists can cover the highest office in the land and setting rules about what those journalists can say or write is a direct attempt to undercut the First Amendment,” Pace wrote. “It should worry all of us.”

The Trump administration says it is up to the White House, not the press, to make decisions about access to areas where space is limited. The White House Correspondents’ Association had been deciding who is in the press pools since the 1953-61 administration of President Dwight Eisenhower. The White House reset that tradition in February, saying it wanted to broaden access to include other news outlets.

“If the AP means to suggest that the White House lacks authority to limit who may engage in news gathering activities from sensitive areas of the White House, it is legally mistaken,” the administration said in its supporting brief.

A lower court ruled this spring that the government couldn’t retaliate against a news organisation for its speech, but the appeals court halted any response to the ruling until an appeal takes place.

AP style also recommends acknowledging Trump’s renaming of the Gulf. The president said that AP’s access would remain restricted until it changed its style.

Nearly four dozen press organisations, and news outlets from ProPublica to Fox News Channel, along with The New York Times and The Washington Post, filed a brief in support of the AP.

“When any news outlet is chilled … the press and the public as a whole lose out, no matter how many reporters or cameras remain in the room,” the outlets said.