White House bans Politico from Air Force One in latest Trump attack on media

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The White House has blocked Politico from covering Donald Trump on Air Force One, blocking the media outlet from traveling with the president to cover the administration as part of a small group of correspondents that follow him out of town.

A spokesperson for Politico confirmed to The Independent that the White House excluded the outlet from Monday’s out-of-town travel pool. CNN first reported the ban.

The move comes days after a federal judge ordered the administration to restore press passes that belonged to several journalists from CNN, Politico and MSNOW, which the president said he was “banning” from the White House, likely in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.

But reporters from CNN, and now Politico , have continued to be barred from Air Force One on days their outlets have been assigned to provide print or television coverage of the president’s travel.

Administration officials have sought to distinguish the removal of individual outlets and reporters from the White House, which a judge has rejected, to pool coverage on Air Force One. Last week, in an interview with TIME , Trump denied that he was violating the court order while White House communications director Steven Cheung said restoring press passes is “different than allowing the pool into the events in the Oval Office or on Air Force One.”

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly is bringing the parties back to his courtroom on Thursday to determine whether to grant a preliminary injunction that would prevent the White House from stripping press access while the legal challenge is ongoing.

In a ruling granting a temporary restraining order last month, Kelly rejected the government’s arguments that the president’s ban was motivated by national security concerns.

“The record lacks factual support for defendants’ contention that the revocation of plaintiffs’ hard passes will in fact protect national security or that national security will be endangered if the court orders their passes reinstated while this litigation proceeds,” Kelly wrote.

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