Trump says he’s not against press but fake news

Media Organisations in the United States of America, whose staff were banned from the White House, have dragged the U.S. President, Donald Trump, to court for direct assault and abruptly locking them out, accusing him of flouting the First and Fifth Amendments.

The three media houses namely: CNN, MS NOW and Politico, argued that it was not the prerogative of the government to decide what journalists and the media houses report or publish. They had Trump and three top government functionaries as respondents.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington by the media organisations, urging a judge to nullify President Trump’s ban as unconstitutional and void, and to stop his aides from enforcing such illegality.

Meanwhile, Trump, who accused the reporters and their media houses of constantly reporting lies and fiction, announced on Friday to ban the affected media outfits with immediate effect.

According to him, “It is really just cumulative stories over the last few years. You get sick of it. They are smart people, but they purposely write negative news.”

The Guardian noted that though there are unquestionable legal precedents that permit the White House to restrict journalists’ access to the building, court rulings affirm that officials can’t apply those restrictions to witch-hunt or discriminate based on content or viewpoint.

In a joint statement issued yesterday to reporters at the U.S. Foreign Press Centre, Washington DC, the media houses instituted the Federal lawsuit to restore access for their representatives, who were denied access to the White House Complex on Saturday.

They also expressed their displeasure with the confiscation of the reporters’ credentials by the Secret Service.

Their counsel, Theodore Boutrous, of Gibson Dunn law firm, slammed the litigation against President Trump, his Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles; the White House Communications Director, Steven Cheung, and the Director of Secret Service, Sean Curran.

Boutrous mentioned that the ban did not only violate the Constitution in multiple ways but also infringe on the organisations’ Fifth Amendment due process and property rights.

But justifying his actions on his Truth Social, Trump wrote: “The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the Fake News, something that has grown like cancer in our beloved United States of America.

“It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to National Security, and must be stopped, now,” he said.