CNN warned the Justice Department on Monday that the network may pursue additional legal action if the Trump administration continues to ban its journalists from traveling with the president aboard Air Force One. In a letter from CNN attorney Theodore Boutrous, the network demanded written confirmation by 5 p.m. Thursday that the administration will abandon any policy excluding CNN from the Oval Office and Air Force One, according to TheWrap.
"These efforts to retaliate and discriminate against CNN based on the content of its news coverage are mistaken, counterproductive, and unlawful," Boutrous wrote. CNN, MS NOW and Politico are locked in a legal battle to restore their access after Trump banned the outlets from White House grounds on September 18. A federal judge extended a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from barring the outlets' reporters from White House grounds, but the White House has continued to exclude CNN from Air Force One, denying access at least four times, including during Trump's trip to the UN General Assembly and as recently as last Friday's travel to Georgia and Florida.
A White House official told TheWrap that "no person and no journalist have a constitutional right to access to the President's Oval Office, Air Force One, or other sensitive and private facilities." Poynter reports that when CNN was blocked from its scheduled turn as the rotating TV pool representative over the weekend, the four other major networks — ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC — declined to fill CNN's spot, so Trump traveled without mainstream television coverage, receiving TV coverage instead from the conservative network Real America's Voice.