The flood of lawsuits against President Donald Trump's administration has focused mainly on the fired workers and the mass deportations. However, the Associated Press was still fighting to regain access to the White House pool events.
The AP announced that, under its stylebook, it will not recognize the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, which was changed via Trump executive order upon entering office. This prompted the new president to remove the AP from Air Force One, any Oval Office meetings, and the East Room of the White House.
A judge lifted that ban on Tuesday, making it another legal loss for the new administration. Under a preliminary injunction, Trump will be prevented from excluding them from any reporting opportunities while the lawsuit works its way through the courts.
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Former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance wrote on Substack Tuesday about the judge overseeing the case and the difficulty the MAGA world will have in attacking him as a Democrat or a closet liberal.
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden was appointed to the federal judiciary by Trump in 2017.
"The Judge’s order is well-reasoned and relied only on a First Amendment argument," wrote Vance. "He seems to be something of both a scholar and a humorist, writing, following a considerable exposition of the history and tradition of the free press."
At one point, he cited, “All of this to say: The AP’s predicament comes with considerable prologue. See William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun (1951) (‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’)”
McFadden wrote in the ruling: “This injunction does not limit the various permissible reasons the Government may have for excluding journalists from limited-access events. It does not mandate that all eligible journalists, or indeed any journalists at all, be given access to the President or nonpublic government spaces. It does not prohibit government officials from freely choosing which journalists to sit down with for interviews or which ones’ questions they answer. And it certainly does not prevent senior officials from publicly expressing their own views. No, the Court simply holds that 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.”
Vance pointed out that McFadden isn't only a Trump appointee, but he has been a member of the far-right Federalist Society for over 20 years. He's also given favorable rulings to Trump before, like blocking Washington, D.C., from vaccinating minors for COVID-19 without a signed note from a parent or guardian.
"In other words, it’s going to be difficult to portray him as a deep state Democratic judge, even for an administration that has ceaselessly criticized federal judges for being unelected—even though that’s how the Constitution works—and making decisions that affect the whole country, which is how our rule of law system works," wrote Vance.
There's a chance that the U.S. Supreme Court may step in and overturn the injunction, but Vance doubts they'll do it.
"Unless five Justices on the Supreme Court believe all of our news should come from Fox and OAN, which is a tough sell even for this Court, it should survive," said Vance.
