Last month, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) that required restoration of press passes for 78 journalists employed by three news outlets that President Donald Trump peremptorily banned from the White House on September 18. U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, extended that order on Tuesday, granting a preliminary injunction to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico.

While Kelly's TRO was based on CNN et al.'s claim that their sudden banishment violated the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process, his justification for the preliminary injunction also addresses their argument that revocation of their press passes violated the First Amendment by retaliating against them for constitutionally protected speech and discriminating against them based on viewpoint. Kelly concludes that the plaintiffs "are likely to succeed not only on their due process claim, but also on their two First Amendment claims."

A retaliation claim requires showing that the plaintiff engaged in conduct protected by the First Amendment, that the defendant's action was "sufficient to deter a person of ordinary firmness" from "speaking again," and that there was "a causal link between the exercise of a constitutional right and the adverse action." Although the government's lawyers did not dispute that the CNN et al.'s journalism is constitutionally protected, they argued that the plaintiffs had failed to satisfy the two other elements.

Kelly disagrees. The "hard passes" at issue in this case, he notes, give journalists unescorted access to the White House "press area," which includes "the briefing room, the press offices, and certain other locations in and around the White House that are open to correspondents." CNN et al. argued that "a hard pass is an important credential because it 'allows a reporter to react to fast-developing news' and gives them 'swift and easy access to key official sources.'" Since "the revocation of Plaintiffs' hard passes matters a lot as to how, whether, and to what extent they can do their jobs," Kelly says, "it is likely that the open-ended ban here would chill a reporter's work."

Trump's "own comments suggest that he intended the revocation of Plaintiffs'
hard passes to alter their reporting on him, bolstering the case that his action here is sufficient to deter a reporter of ordinary firmness from reporting in the same way she had before," Kelly adds. The day he announced the ban, Trump complained that CNN et al. "purposely write negative news" to "try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration." Although "the ban would go as far as you can," he added, "I'd love it" if "they could straighten themselves out."

The plaintiffs also have shown "there is likely a causal link between the exercise of their First Amendment rights and the revocation of their hard passes and exclusion from the White House press area," Kelly writes. "President Trump likely banned Plaintiffs from the White House because he believes that their reporting is generally inaccurate and biased against him."

Again, Trump's public comments amply support that conclusion. He explicitly said he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico "as a result of their constant 'reporting' [of] FAKE NEWS," adding that journalists "shouldn't be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they're covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America." When asked whether his decision was motivated by a "particular reason" or "particular story," Trump replied: "No, no. It's really just cumulative stories over the last two years." The problem, he said, was "purposely negative stories."

In a Truth Social post three days later, Trump likewise condemned "Fake News" that he said was "corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control." CNN et al.'s reporters are "Third Rate Clowns" who "purposefully distort, twist, and degrade with everything they write or publish," he added that evening. "Virtually every story about me, or anything having to do with me, is negative, wrong and, in many cases, DANGEROUS for our Country! No matter how GREAT my Achievements, they trivialize and demean."

Trump offered a similar defense of the ban in a September 28 interview with Time. "It's just bad story after bad story," and "most of them are fake," he complained. "I don't think anybody should be forced to bear fake news, constantly bad stories, because I've done great things." Although "I can name 100 great things I've done," he added, "I never get good press. I never get fair press."

The government's lawyers maintained that Trump or another official "would have reached the same decision" based on the "alternative ground" that CNN et al. had violated "minimum professional journalistic standards" by "publishing classified and national security information." Kelly was not impressed by that belated rationale, which no one mentioned until after the news outlets gave the government a copy of their lawsuit.

"There is no evidence in the record that President Trump made the decision to revoke
Plaintiffs' hard passes on national security grounds," Kelly writes. "Nor at any time has he directly stated that national security was the reason for his decision. When he announced the ban with his post on September 18, he did not mention national security. When he was asked later that day about the 'particular reason' for his action, he did not mention national security."

Trump did mention "national security" in Truth Social posts he wrote the day that CNN et al. filed their lawsuit. But "that expression appears to have been simply another way for him to describe Plaintiffs' alleged inaccuracies and unfairness in their reporting about topics like his achievements or electoral success," Kelly says. "All this suggests that 'national security' was merely a post-hoc justification for the decision, which greatly undermines" the claim that Trump would have "taken the same action in the absence of Plaintiffs' protected speech."

The government also cited letters to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House Press Office, which were sent four days after Trump banned them. Those letters averred that the three news outlets had violated "the standards of professionalism and decorum expected of those given access to the White House Complex" by "publishing sensitive or classified information" and "trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues."

The letters "hardly move the needle" on the question of why Trump banned CNN et al. from the White House, Kelly says. They "appear to conflate concerns about otherwise protected speech" with "national security concerns," he notes, and they do not even explicitly say that Trump "made the decision for national security reasons."

Each letter lists specific stories to which the White House objected. But Kelly notes that two reporters "had their hard passes renewed after publishing articles that Defendants cite in their September 22 letters as supporting the potential revocation of their hard passes."

The Trump administration tried to shore up its "national security" justification by submitting a declaration from Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson. While Wilson explains "how the publication of classified and sensitive information can undermine national security," Kelly notes, she "says little to nothing about President Trump's decision to revoke Plaintiffs' hard passes" and does not say "anything about White House press practices or operations."

The defendants "have not really tried to support" the claim that CNN et al.'s reporting "damaged national security," Kelly says, noting that news stories based on "sensitive or classified information" are "commonplace, for better or worse." If Trump "would have banned Plaintiffs from the White House even in the absence of their protected speech," he suggests, "Defendants would not have had to scramble to make their case with unsigned letters and a declarant who does not even work there."

The evidence of retaliation also supports the claim that Trump discriminated against CNN et al. based on viewpoint, which is presumptively unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Kelly notes, has held that "the White House Press Area" qualifies as a "nonpublic forum," meaning journalists cannot be excluded because of the views they have expressed.

"It is likely that Plaintiffs were selected by President Trump for revocation of their access to the White House press area because he believes their coverage of him and his administration is generally inaccurate and biased," Kelly writes. "In other words, it was 'an effort to suppress the speaker's activity due to disagreement with the speaker's view,' rather than to vindicate any other purportedly 'compelling governmental interest,' including maintaining professional standards for journalists or protecting national security. Simply put, that is unlawful viewpoint discrimination."

Kelly's decision "is a stinging defeat for Trump's assault on the free press and a powerful vindication of the First Amendment," Caitlin Vogus, senior adviser for advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in an emailed press release. "As Kelly rightly recognized, presidents don't get to use their power to purge journalists because they don't like what they report."

The post A Trump Appointee Says the President Likely Violated the First Amendment by Banishing Disfavored Journalists appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Imagine getting a bill from your local government for $900,000 because they see a greenhouse on your property and just assume you're growing marijuana without a permit.

Imagine government demanding $400,000 because you didn't know to fill out a single-page form.

Or you get slapped with a $100,000 fine for parking your car on your own property.

It sounds absurd, but as my newest video shows, that's really happening.

How can that be? Doesn't America's Constitution say government may not impose "excessive fines"?

It happens because some bureaucrats, savoring their power, act like tyrants.

At least now there is hope for a remedy. One of these excessive fine cases has reached the Supreme Court.

Ken Jouppi worked as a pilot in Alaska for 30 years, until one day, state troopers stopped his plane before takeoff.

"I didn't think we had anything to hide," he says. "They searched the airplane, opened up this lady's boxes of groceries and found beer."

Transporting beer. That was his crime.

"Isn't beer legal in America?" I ask Jouppi's lawyer, Mike Greenberg.

"In most places," he replies. But some towns in Alaska ban beer.

Jouppi was convicted of bootlegging.

Every pilot must know which town has what rule, and search everybody?

"They think pilots should search people's luggage," says Jouppi. "It was such a terrible thing to do to another individual, invade their privacy, and assault their dignity….I just didn't feel right about doing that."

Alaskan officials say the beer was visible, so Jouppi should have known about it. They jailed him for three days and seized his plane.

"That airplane was my primary source of income," says Jouppi. "Without it, I didn't have a business anymore."

I assumed such excessive punishment would be dismissed quickly by a court. But it wasn't.

"Jouppi has been fighting to keep his plane for 14 years," says Greenberg. "The plane is still sitting on a tarmac….It's a ludicrous situation where the state has every interest in going after valuable assets rather than actually fighting supposed harms of alcohol."

Greenberg's law firm, the Institute for Justice, took Jouppi's case, and now the U.S. Supreme Court will hear it.

I hope he wins. It's just wrong when governments destroy lives for small mistakes.

They're also doing that to Tuncay Saydam, a retired professor.

The IRS demands he pay $400,000 because he didn't know to fill out a one-page form about an old bank account in his native Turkey.

"The fines," says Saydam, "will destroy my life….We have never been rich."

His unpaid tax is less than $30,000. But the IRS demands he pay them more than $400,000. A California court upheld that penalty. Northern Californian Chief Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu wrote, "Government suffered a significant tax loss."

Finally, bureaucrats in Humboldt County, California, took aerial photos of people's property to search for unlicensed marijuana farms.

When they saw greenhouses, they fined property owners.

Blu Graham was fined $900,000, "$30,000 a day, when all I've ever done is grow vegetables in my greenhouses."

"There actually was no marijuana on the property!" says Greenberg. "They were just guessing that if you built a greenhouse, this must be connected to marijuana."

Finally, a lawsuit got the county to promise to end its ruinous fine system.

But it took four years.

Why do governments fight to keep outrageous fines that punish largely innocent people?

"Unlike other forms of punishment," says Greenberg, "fines make the government money. The prosecutor's office, state troopers, they get to keep the proceeds. It's an abusive system because they have every incentive to continue to prosecute."

I invited the heavy-fining judges and government lawyers to appear in my video to explain these fines. None would agree to talk about it.

Bureaucrats always want more money. It's a reason the Constitution prohibits excessive fines.

I trust that the Supreme Court will put a stop to these abuses.

COPYRIGHT 2026 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

The post How Local Governments Turn Minor Violations Into Financial Ruin appeared first on Reason Magazine.