Main: President Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, United States Secretary of State, attend a press conference at the NATO Summit at the Presidential Complex in Ankara, Turkiye, on July 8, 2026 (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via AP). Left inset: U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly (Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit).
A high-profile First Amendment attorney representing CNN sharply challenged the Justice Department during a fast-moving hearing Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Ted Boutrous accused the DOJ of invoking “national security” as though the phrase alone could serve as a legal shortcut for President Donald Trump’s decision to bar the media organizations CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House access.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee whom the president called “totally disloyal” shortly before the hearing, kept the proceeding to less than an hour. The session came only two days after the news organizations filed their lawsuit, which argues that the White House violated the First Amendment and denied them due process under the Fifth Amendment.
Kelly opened by noting that Boutrous had previously appeared before him nearly eight years ago. In that earlier case, the lawyer successfully persuaded Kelly to reinstate then-CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s White House press credentials.
The judge said the procedures established by the D.C. Circuit in the Acosta litigation—and in a comparable case involving Playboy reporter Brian Karem—“wasn’t followed here.”
Boutrous argued that the White House’s latest ban should be overturned because it was imposed with “no notice, no process, and no warning.” He described the administration’s treatment of the outlets as an especially obvious example of viewpoint discrimination.
The attorney reserved his strongest criticism for the DOJ’s last-minute national security arguments, which appeared in a filing submitted Tuesday evening.
The filing, signed by DOJ lawyer Michael Velchik, maintained that access to the White House is “a privilege—not a right.”
The department also argued that the D.C. Circuit’s ruling in Sherrill v. Knight was wrongly decided and should be overturned. According to the DOJ, Trump has “compelling interest[s]” in setting baseline standards for legitimate journalists and protecting sensitive national security information.
Boutrous portrayed that position as another instance of the Trump administration deploying “national security” to change the direction of courtroom disputes. He pointed to the administration’s broader use of the argument in recent litigation.
In his view, the national security claims were designed to draw attention away from what he called a plainly unconstitutional act of retaliation against critical news organizations.
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Boutrous told the court that Trump did not mention national security until after the media groups announced Monday morning that they planned to sue. He suggested the argument emerged only after the lawsuit became imminent.
“They’re just saying national security,” Boutrous said, arguing that the phrase was being treated as a set of “magic words” capable of resolving every legal question. He said the administration had offered no concrete explanation, no specific reporting incidents identified by the president and no facts that could justify bypassing due process. Instead, he characterized the filing as a retrospective attempt to defend what he called a blatant constitutional violation.
Boutrous also warned that winning a temporary restraining order on due process grounds might not end the dispute. He repeatedly referred to Trump’s effort to remove Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook as an example of why he feared the administration could continue taking aggressive steps.
“I’m very concerned that even if the court grants a TRO [temporary restraining order] on due process grounds, the shenanigans will continue,” Boutrous said. Citing the Supreme Court’s Trump v. Cook decision, he argued that judges should not approach the administration’s next move with the same level of naivete expected from ordinary citizens.
Velchik, representing the DOJ, reiterated that White House access is a privilege rather than a constitutional entitlement. He said Trump had personally issued notice of his decision and provided a detailed, though non-exhaustive, list of the reporting incidents at issue.
The government attorney said the outlets had been given an opportunity to challenge those incidents and would have until 5 p.m. Friday to submit their response.
In his rebuttal, Boutrous rejected that timeline as a meaningful legal process and again invoked Cook v. Trump to support his warning.
He argued that offering the organizations a chance to respond by Friday afternoon did not guarantee a fair review. If the administration continued changing its rationale or shifting the terms of the dispute, he said, the procedure would not satisfy the requirements of due process.
Kelly issued no ruling at the conclusion of the hearing. The judge told the parties he would try to provide an answer as quickly as possible.
The post ‘I guess the light bulb went off’: CNN lawyer mocks Trump DOJ’s ‘post hoc’ use of ‘magic words’ to get whatever the president wants first appeared on Law & Crime.