Trump administration appeals court decision ordering AP journalists back into White House events

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The Trump administration said Wednesday it would appeal a federal court decision that ordered it to re-admit Associated Press journalists to White House events on First Amendment grounds.

The government filed a notice of appeal early Wednesday afternoon on behalf of the three officials sued by the AP — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, White House chief of staff Susan Wiles and deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich. The one-page notice of appeal gave no other details.

The defendants “respectfully provide notice that they hereby appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,” the notice said.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled in favor of the AP, whose reporters and photographers had been excluded from White House events since February because the news agency had decided not to follow the president’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico.

McFadden ruled that the government can't retaliate against the AP's decision. Citing a principle known as “viewpoint discrimination,” the judge wrote that the administration cannot punish the news organization for the content of its speech. The decision, while a preliminary injunction, handed the AP a major victory at a time the White House has been challenging the press on several levels.

“Under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalists — be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere — it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” McFadden wrote. “The Constitution requires no less.”

The AP has been blocked since Feb. 11 from being among the small group of journalists to cover Trump in the Oval Office or aboard Air Force One, with sporadic ability to cover him at events in the East Room.

Trump has dismissed the AP, which was established in 1846, as a group of “radical left lunatics” and said that “we’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree it’s the Gulf of America.”

The AP’s decisions on what terminology to use are followed by journalists and other writers around the world through its influential stylebook. The outlet said it would continue to use Gulf of Mexico, as the body of water has been known for hundreds of years, while also noting Trump’s decision to rename it the Gulf of America.