They will venue shop and find a leftist judge.
The Supreme Court has never recognized a special constitutional right of access for the press to the White House or to government information beyond what the public generally has. Journalists have the same right as anyone else to publish what they lawfully obtain; they do not have a right to force the government to give them special entry.
But . . .
What the courts have ruled
Once the White House voluntarily creates a press-access system (hard passes, the briefing room, press pool events), it cannot run that system arbitrarily or as a tool of viewpoint discrimination.
The leading case is
Sherrill v. Knight (D.C. Circuit, 1977). The court held that:
- White House press facilities, having been opened to bona fide Washington correspondents, cannot be denied “arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons.”
- The First Amendment interest in newsgathering means a denial of a pass implicates a “liberty” interest that requires due process: notice of the factual basis, an opportunity to respond, and a written explanation.
- Content-based or viewpoint-based criteria are prohibited.
Later cases followed the same line:
- Karem v. Trump (D.C. Circuit, 2020) applied the same due-process rules to revocation of an existing hard pass.
- Courts have treated the White House press area as a nonpublic forum. The government may impose reasonable, viewpoint-neutral restrictions (for example, requiring a congressional press-gallery credential). It may not exclude outlets because it dislikes their coverage.
In short: there is no constitutional entitlement to a pass. There
is a constitutional limit on how the government may withhold or take one away once it has created the system.
That is why First Amendment lawyers describe the current CNN/Politico/MS NOW ban as “textbook viewpoint discrimination” and expect it to face a strong court challenge—not because a pass is guaranteed, but because the stated reason for taking the passes away is the content of the reporting.
