The Associated Press sued three Trump administration officials Friday over access to presidential events, citing freedom of speech in asking a federal judge to stop the 10-day blocking of its journalists.
The lawsuit was filed Friday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
The AP says its case is about an unconstitutional effort by the White House to control speech — in this case refusing to change its style from the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” as President Trump did last month with an executive order.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the AP said in its lawsuit, which names White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich and press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“This targeted attack on the AP’s editorial independence and ability to gather and report the news strikes at the very core of the First Amendment,” the news agency said. “This court should remedy it immediately.”
The White House in a statement Friday called the lawsuit “frivolous and demented” and that it’s “nothing more than a blatant PR stunt masquerading as a first amendment case.”
“They are clearly suffering from a severe, debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted their peanut-sized brains,” said Steven Cheung, the White House communications director. “We will defeat them in court just like we crushed their leftist reporters at the ballot box.”
Leavitt responded to the lawsuit Friday, telling reporters that she “wanted to get the White House counsel on the phone before taking this stage to see what I can and cannot say. But look, we feel we’re in the right in this position, and I said in my first briefing at the podium, we are going to ensure that truth and accuracy is present at that White House every single day.”
In stopping the AP from attending press events at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, or flying on Air Force One in the agency’s customary spot, the Trump team directly cited the AP’s decision not to fully follow the president’s renaming.
“We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America,” Mr. Trump said Tuesday.
