Trump-appointed judge rejects White House arguments on AP access block
A Trump-appointed judge late Friday accused the White House of cherry-picking testimony and misconstruing facts in its effort to seek a stay of his order that would, come Sunday, return the Associated Press to the White House press pool.
Judge Trevor McFadden of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the government's request for a stay pending appeal.
In a five-page order that ripped at the various rationales the administration has put forward to delay the restoration of the Associated Press' access, the judge reiterated his finding that the Trump White House has retaliated against the Associated Press in violation of its First Amendment rights.
"The motion fails on the law," McFadden said. "But it also misconstrues the facts."
McFadden also said the government "cherry-picked" a quote from the testimony of the Associated Press' Chief White House Correspondent Zeke Miller, who acknowledged under Justice Department cross-examination that the news organization was able to cover events such as the president's press conferences with the leaders of France and the United Kingdom by flying in the reporters who cover them in Paris and London.
"As the court previously found, the AP's text journalists have been systematically banned from large, limited-access events open to the entire White House press corps," McFadden said, adding that the ban the Associated Press has experienced "need not be complete to be unconstitutional or irreparable."
The judge also scolded the Justice Department for changing up its legal arguments in its Wednesday stay request, pointing to "a vague separation-of-powers" concern "for the first time in a motion to stay."
The "clear commands of First Amendment precedent" outweigh those concerns, McFadden said.
-ABC News' Steven Portnoy
