By Katelyn Polantz, Tierney Sneed, Brian Stelter

(CNN) — The Justice Department said late Tuesday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico can be shut out from areas of the White House at the president’s will. The lawyers argue that the outlets’ coverage of the Iran war and of President Donald Trump’s ballroom construction could amount to a national security risk that justifies the ban.

A court filing from the Trump administration late Tuesday night argues “access to the White House is a privilege, not a right,” in spite of First Amendment protections around press freedom.

The filing also argues Trump can control private areas of the White House to protect national security information that may be inside the complex – an argument in line with other abrupt lockdowns and changes Trump has made to the White House.

“At the very least, the Government may control reporters’ access to restricted presidential areas, such as the Oval Office, even for viewpoint-discriminatory reasons,” the Justice Department wrote to the court.

“The President has found that Plaintiffs have engaged in a number of reporting incidents that have threatened national security. Such reporting directly raises national security concerns.”

The filings came on the eve of an emergency hearing before federal judge Timothy Kelly in Washington, DC. CNN, MS NOW and Politico are asking for the court to immediately restore their access to the White House.

The case is a critical test of First Amendment protections and has prompted suspensions of live coverage of Trump by the major TV networks, National Public Radio and still photographers in the White House press corps.

The outlets argue in their lawsuit that Trump’s ban violates the First Amendment and the Constitution’s due process protections.

“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the outlets said in their lawsuit, which asks the court to act immediately to revive their journalists’ access to the White House.

While the Justice Department is arguing for the president’s prerogatives, the federal court in Washington, DC, has repeatedly restored journalists’ press access at the White House when administrations have tried to take it away. That includes by setting the law in the nation’s capital in favor of press freedoms and due process protections for news outlets.

The three banned outlets did not issue any public response to the government’s filing on Wednesday morning. But CNN has previously said that the ban is an “illegal assault” on the First Amendment.

Many outside legal experts heaped skepticism on the government’s “national security” assertions.

“It’s an obvious post-hoc rationalization,” said Nico Perrino of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “Trump himself said the ban was based on the ‘negative’ stories CNN, MS NOW, and Politico wrote about him. Will any judge buy this bad faith argument?”

Some of the stories cited by the White House’s letters don’t involve national security at all. The letter to Politico complained about how a recent edition of Playbook “relied on unnamed sources to paint the Republican midterm convention in Dallas as a disaster. Media reporting showed that the convention had over 100 million live stream views.”

New letters to outlets citing stories about East Wing ballroom, Iran war

The new court filings include letters to the three outlets, dated Tuesday, explaining the president’s cited reasons for the ban. A key claim the media companies have made in the case is that the White House violated their due process rights by failing to give them any written warning before cutting off their access and by depriving the journalists the opportunity to contest the ban. The DOJ pointed to the letters to argue that the due process claims should fail.

The letter was sent to CNN’s Washington bureau chief on Tuesday at 10:30 p.m.

The letters cite various stories published by the news organizations and give the reporters until Friday to offer written submissions objecting to the bans.

The letter to CNN cites its reporting on Trump’s plans to rebuild a “top secret” bunker below the East Wing ballroom he is constructing, as well as several stories by the network about the Iran war.

It said CNN had failed to uphold the “expectations” of White House press badge holders because of “reporting incidents” that “threatened national security and/or spread falsehoods.”

CNN reporter Betsy Klein’s story on plans to rebuild a “top secret bunker” underneath the East Wing was published in January 2026.

The White House renewed her hard pass, which grants access to the White House, in June and it went into effect when her prior pass expired at the end of August, according to a declaration Klein made to the court.

The letter to MS NOW, meanwhile, criticizes its coverage of the war in Iran and a story about a leak probe, while Politico was targeted because of stories related to the Iran, the ballroom and Russia sanctions discussions.

In recent days, dozens of other news outlets have rallied to defend the banned news outlets.

CNN’s usual rivals, the other major TV networks in the US, continue to show solidarity by declining to supply pooled coverage of the president’s movements and events.

Fox News was scheduled to serve as the TV pool crew on Tuesday evening, and NBC on Wednesday morning, and neither network provided the usual coverage.

The New York Times said Tuesday that it will continue a photo blackout of Trump “until a court has the chance to hear arguments on the legal claims filed by those media organizations.”

The Times said its decision “recognizes that barring these media outlets is unequal treatment and punitive retaliation for simply reporting the news.”

This story has been updated with additional details.

The-CNN-Wire
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