A federal judge ordered the White House to restore West Wing press credentials to three news organizations after President Donald Trump attempted to bar their access for unfavorable reporting.

Early Thursday morning, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly granted a temporary restraining order brought by POLITICO, CNN, and MS NOW as part of a joint lawsuit. The lawsuit cites the imperative role of a “free press” and ordered the 78 journalists’ credentials returned to the three outlets for at least the next two weeks as litigation plays out.

In the eight-page ruling, the judge goes over a slew of laws that Trump may have violated in banning the three media groups — from stepping on their First Amendment rights to a free press to the Fifth Amendment right to due process.

The judge also questioned Trump’s justification for removing the outlets, originally saying it was a matter of national security.

“The court is skeptical — at least on this record — that defendants’ interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by, the revocation of plaintiffs’ hard passes,” Kelly wrote in an 8-page ruling issued just before 1 a.m. ET.

“Nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns. Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ plaintiffs from the White House — instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of plaintiffs’ reporting,” the judge added.

The Washington Blade reached out to the White House press office asking if the administration would file an appeal to keep the journalists out of the West Wing but did not hear back before publication time.

Past the first checkpoint to get into the White House, multiple carts filled with camera equipment sat along a fence. Wagons loaded with tripods, cables, mics, and cameras sat just past where they normally would be working at full power. Today, they were turned off and packed away.

Last week, President Donald Trump decided to bar CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from the White House following reporting he considers “FAKE NEWS.”

Trump, in a post on Truth Social on Monday morning, described his move as “instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS,” which he said has “grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America.”

“It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control,” he wrote on the social media site he owns. “It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”

As a result, all of the major television networks that comprise the television press pool — ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox News — suspended their White House TV pool coverage. They decided to no longer send camera crews to cover President Donald Trump’s events.

“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” the five White House TV pool networks said in a joint statement Monday. “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

POLITICO, CNN and MS NOW filed a lawsuit Monday to immediately restore access for their reporters, who had their credentials confiscated by the Secret Service.

In the White House, there was a noticeable shift in the atmosphere. The Washington Blade is the only LGBTQ news outlet that is part of the White House Press Pool, and was acting as the primary print pooler as the situation unfolded on Monday. 

Whispers about who might be kicked from the press pool next could be heard both in the press area of the West Wing, as well as outside the part of the White House dedicated to filming the president’s office. The area where TV stations normally film their live shots of the White House while reporting looked less busy than a normal Monday — especially as the president made his way to New York City ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting this week.

CNN’s outdoor filming area, which is staffed nearly at all times, sat dark with a green cover over the space that normally houses its cameras and political reporters like Kaitlan Collins.

There were small signs of solidarity from other outlets in the press office. A sign that has hung outside one of the news offices in the West Wing was updated. It originally read, “WE STAND WITH AP” following President Trump’s first attempt at removing a news outlet he deemed unfavorable. It now includes “I STAND WITH AP CNN MSNOW POLITICO.”

The change could also be felt as the press pool attempted to cover the president.

There was a ribbon cutting in honor of the $6 million helipad installed at Trump’s behest — which had nearly no audio as a result of fewer microphones in the space following the outlets’ removal on Monday afternoon, and partly because of the loud sound of Marine One.

Vice President JD Vance defended Trump when asked about the changes to TV access at the White House, standing with the president despite this likely being a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of a free and fair press.

“He’s not banning media outlets. What he’s doing is saying we’re not going to give you special access to the White House if you engage in what is effectively propaganda,” Vance said, alleging that 92% of the stories from CNN, MS NOW and Politico about Trump are “negative.”

“That’s not representative of the American people. It’s not representative of public opinion,” Vance said.

He pushed back on the notion that this is a hindrance on free speech — claiming access to the president through White House visitation is a privilege — a privilege that in this administration, at least until courts weigh in, could change the landscape of the American media system.

“It’s about basic fairness. They can still report. They still have the access to free speech. They’re just not going to get an office in the White House anymore,” Vance said.

Jacqui Heinrich, the White House Correspondents Association President condemned the president’s actions in restricting media access in a statement sent to WHCA members on Saturday.

“Today’s action revoking access for journalists from CNN, POLITICO, and MSNOW violates the First Amendment. The implications extend beyond these organizations: a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future.

“The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably. That’s why courts have repeatedly held that once the White House provides access to journalists, it cannot deny that access arbitrarily or based on the content of their reporting. The WHCA calls on the administration to immediately restore our colleagues’ access.”

Uncloseted Media published this article on Aug. 21.

By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON and HOPE PISONI | Since President Donald Trump regained office in January 2025, he and his administration have waged an all-out war against the LGBTQ community.

This has led queer Americans to move to other countries at unprecedented rates — Rainbow Railroad, a Canadian nonprofit that supports LGBTQ asylum seekers, reported receiving a huge increase in inquiries from the U.S. last year.

The same pattern is playing out within the government. And it’s leading to a brain drain of competent queer employees and allies who are either resigning or being fired, often because of their LGBTQ identity or their belief that queer people deserve basic human rights.

Here are six examples of federal workers who had a messy exit from Trump 2.0:

Demetre Daskalakis

1. WHAT HE DID: Dr. Daskalakis is one of the foremost LGBTQ health professionals in the U.S. Under Trump’s first term, he was appointed director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Under Biden, he also served as the deputy response coordinator for mpox at the White House.
2. WHAT HAPPENED: While he continued a lot of this work under Trump 2.0, he didn’t last long. In August 2025, he resigned from the CDC, writing in his resignation letter that he was “unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.”
3. BOTTOM LINE: I recently interviewed Daskalakis, where he told me that leadership from RFK Jr.’s Health and Human Services Department justified HIV cuts by saying the virus is “just too woke.”

Julia Curlee

1. WHAT SHE DID: Julia Curlee worked in intelligence for nearly two decades between the CIA and the National Security Council. Earlier this week, she wrote an article in The Atlantic explaining how she had served as Mike Pence’s daily briefer and the NSC’s director for intelligence programs. During Trump 1.0, she briefed the president on Air Force One.
2. WHAT HAPPENED: Curlee told CNN this week that in Trump’s second term, her treatment by the federal government transformed. She was no longer allowed to use the women’s bathroom on federal property and had to leave her workplace to relieve herself. Her passport was also reissued to read “male,” which led to complications when traveling abroad. In March 2025, less than 70 days into Trump’s second term, Curlee says she received a call while at a rib joint in Virginia with her family informing her that her White House tour was over and that they couldn’t tell her why. She continued to work for the CIA for some months, but she later resigned.
3. BOTTOM LINE: Curlee wrote that moments after she learned she was fired from the White House, she saw a post from right-wing political activist Laura Loomer that read “A transgender, Biden holdover who hates President Trump is still working in the NSC intel office. I’m told there are several NSC staffers who have complained that this trans Biden holdover hasn’t been fired yet, but nothing is being done about it.”

Marc Seawright

1. WHAT HE DID: Marc Seawright worked for more than eight years at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Most recently, he served as the EEOC’s director of information governance and strategy, where he oversaw tech policy to help combat workplace harassment and discrimination.
2. WHAT HAPPENED: During Trump 2.0, Seawright was ordered to develop technology that would erase any mention of LGBTQ identities from EEOC outreach materials. “[My expertise] was being leveraged to perpetuate discrimination against people like me,” he told the Associated Press. In that article, Seawright and other transgender and gender nonconforming federal employees described their “fear, grief, frustration, and distress working for the federal government at a time when it rejects them — often with no clear path for recourse or support.”
3. BOTTOM LINE: Seawright quit in June, citing a hostile work environment. “It became overwhelming. It felt insurmountable,” he told the AP. He has now hired lawyers at Katz Banks Kumin and has filed a discrimination complaint.

David Maltinsky

1. WHAT HE DID: Until 2025, Maltinsky worked for more than 16 years at the FBI as an intelligence specialist. In 2025, he was training to become a special agent, but three weeks ahead of graduation, he was fired.
2. WHAT HAPPENED: On Oct. 1, he was delivered a letter from FBI Director Kash Patel informing him that he was being fired for an “inappropriate display of political signage.” The signage in question, according to Maltinsky, was a Pride flag displayed in his work station at a previous post in Los Angeles. The flag had been given to him by the FBI’s LA Field Office, and Maltinsky says he had been told by multiple supervisors that displaying it would not be a violation.
3. BOTTOM LINE: Maltinsky is currently suing the FBI and the Department of Justice, arguing that his firing constituted unlawful discrimination.

Mary Brinkmeyer

1. WHAT SHE DID: Brinkmeyer had been working as a psychologist for the Department of Veterans Affairs since 2008. She held multiple leadership roles, including the LGBTQ veteran care coordinator at the Hampton VA Medical Center. She established the first military support group for trans servicemembers and was awarded Navy Psychology Civilian Psychologist of the Year in 2016.
2. WHAT HAPPENED: Following an early Trump executive order directing the federal government to purge any practices promoting “gender ideology,” Brinkmeyer says staff at her workplace were told to remove all LGBTQ-affirming materials from both public and private areas, as well as to identify “anything in medical records, training materials, or patient resources that could be considered ‘gender ideology.’” When she refused to comply and confronted her supervisor, she says her concerns were dismissed.
3. BOTTOM LINE: Brinkmeyer resigned in February 2025, stating that she “didn’t want to be complicit in something that I knew was wrong.”

Amy Paris

1. WHAT SHE DID: Paris was the second-highest ranking trans woman in the federal government, serving as a deputy digital services lead in the HHS Department, where she oversaw the safety of organ donations. Prior to that, she worked in a number of tech-related roles across the federal government since the Bush administration. She helped create cross-agency spending trackers, streamlined unemployment insurance during the pandemic and implemented trans-inclusive policies like gender-neutral passports.
2. WHAT HAPPENED: Paris was fired as part of a string of mass layoffs across the federal government in February 2025. While the HHS did not publicly comment on why she was fired, Paris says she was told it was because of her performance, despite the fact that she got a 4.75 out of five on her last performance review and was praised for her work by multiple Biden administration officials.
3. BOTTOM LINE: Paris told the 19th she suspected her firing was politically motivated, saying the Trump administration is “trying to sow discord and disrupt confidence in the workings of the federal government.”