A lot of people wrote in, both in comments and in my DMs, after yesterday’s article criticizing Donald Trump’s goofball policies with White House credentials. It’s true that no one has a right to a press pass. It’s also true that presidents deny passes all the time for political reasons. The issue is that a president can’t say, out loud, that he or she is denying a pass for speech reasons. From Perry v. Sindermann:
For at least a quarter-century, this Court has made clear that, even though a person has no “right” to a valuable governmental benefit, and even though the government may deny him the benefit for any number of reasons, there are some reasons upon which the government may not rely. It may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interest, especially his interest in freedom of speech.
This doesn’t rate high on my personal list of First Amendment threats (I actually laughed the first time I heard about the “Gulf of America” story), but it’s clearly verboten and when Trump does things like this, it underscores that he doesn’t care about rules. If you want to show that you “cherish” the free press, do what every president does: mess with them legally.
So, he can do it, but he can't tell the truth about why he is doing it.
All he has to do is lie about his reasons, and then it is legal?
That may be the Law, but if so, then the law is an ass.
What is the press? Is it only the corporate big guys? Isn’t Trump the first president to allow bloggers to ask questions. This isn’t a free press issue it’s a protected privilege issue that corporate pretty people are butt-hurt about.