Justice Department chief backs up Trump’s right to ban CNN reporters from Air Force One

Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that President Trump was entitled to block CNN from boarding Air Force One on Saturday and the outlet’s exclusion was a matter of national security.

“The president has every right to decide who gets to fly on his plane, and it is national security, especially on Air Force One, and especially at the White House,” Mr. Blanche told ABC’s “This Week.”

The attorney general said the president is authorized to decide which members of the press travel with him.

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Mr. Trump excluded CNN a day after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House to restore press credentials for CNN, Politico and MS Now. Mr. Trump had banned the three outlets from the White House for reporting “fake news” and providing overwhelmingly negative coverage of his administration.

Judge Kelly’s order restored the news organizations’ White House access but did not directly address the outlets’ exclusive access to the president through pool coverage.

The White House restored the credentials for the three outlets and allowed CNN to cover Mr. Trump’s visit to the National Archives with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week. But CNN was blocked from boarding Air Force One on Saturday to accompany Mr. Trump to Tennessee.

“It’s not unusual, and as a matter of fact, it’s common, every time the president travels that he and his team decide which reporters get to travel with the president,” Mr. Blanche said Sunday. “What you have now is you have certain news outlets upset and frustrated at what happened last week, and so they’re refusing to use pool coverage.”

CNN was slated to provide pool coverage aboard Air Force One on Saturday. Instead, the network was turned away.

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Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday morning: “Fake news should not be allowed in the White House!!! It has gone on far too long.”

Mr. Blanche backed up the president’s media outlet ban, citing “complete misinformation” reported by CNN and other outlets “that affects our relationship with our foreign partners, that affects our relationship with our foreign enemies.”

He said the president isn’t seeking favorable coverage but wants fair and balanced reporting.

“It is absolutely the president’s duty to make sure that the American people are hearing accurate news,” the attorney general said.

The ousted media outlets have until Monday to file court documents seeking a temporary injunction against the ban.

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The Trump administration’s press office sent letters Tuesday to the three outlets, listing their offenses and giving them until Friday to respond.

Mr. Trump’s press team listed news stories containing “sensitive security information,” among them an August CNN story that cited unnamed sources who revealed the United States had exhausted most of its interceptors for a critical missile defense system.

The letters cited numerous stories about national security issues that credited anonymous sources.

Such coverage “diverts White House resources and those of the national security team in particular, which must evaluate whether the leaked information is classified, the source of any leak, and the security implications of any such disclosure,” White House press office officials said.

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Judge Kelly, in his ruling issuing a 14-day restraining order against Mr. Trump’s ban, was unconvinced by the Trump administration’s argument, put forward by Department of Justice senior counsel Michael Velchik, that the three outlets posed a threat to national security. He used Mr. Trump’s own words to make his case.

“Certainly that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House,” Judge Kelly wrote. “Instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiff’s reporting.”

Mr. Blanche declined Sunday to respond to the judge’s ruling and said the case would continue to be litigated.

“The government’s position and what the Department of Justice said in court, which is the same thing that President Trump has said repeatedly, is at some point, the complete misinformation and the inaccuracy and the one-sided news out of certain organizations does become a national security issue, and it’s not right for the people of the United States have to put up with it,” Mr. Blanche said.

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Susan Ferrechio

sferrechio@washingtontimes.com

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