DOJ's Late-Night Response Cites National Security to Justify White House Press Ban — a Rationale Trump Never Gave
On the evening of September 22, 2026, Justice Department attorney Michael Kenneth Velchik filed defendants’ response to the TRO motion (docket entry 16) in Cable News Network, Inc. v. Trump, 1:26-cv-03287 (D.D.C.). Per CNBC, the filing came “late Tuesday night” — hours before the noon deadline Judge Kelly had set the prior day — and, for the first time, grounded the credential revocations in national security, arguing Trump had the legal authority to bar the outlets on that basis. Trump had not cited national security when he announced the ban on September 18-19; per the same-day docket record and later court findings, his public statements focused on the outlets’ alleged untruthfulness and “negativity.”
The response attached exhibits described on the docket as letters sent to each outlet on September 22 (Exhibit “CNN Letter,” “MSNOW Letter,” “Politico Letter”) along with declarations from officials identified in later filings only by surname (Brown, Wilson). Those letters — quoted in Judge Kelly’s later TRO opinion — asserted plaintiffs’ reporting “threatened national security and/or spread falsehoods” and that their organizations had “exhibited behavior in violation of the standards of professionalism and decorum expected of those given access to the White House Complex.” A day earlier (docket entry 14, September 22), plaintiffs had separately filed a Notice of Supplemental Authority attaching a D.C. Circuit opinion.
Legal theory, as the government framed it: post-deprivation process (notice and a hearing after, not before, revocation) can suffice in “extraordinary circumstances,” and safeguarding national security supplies such circumstances here, justifying summary revocation of hard passes without the pre-deprivation notice Sherrill v. Knight (D.C. Cir. 1977) and Karem v. Trump (D.C. Cir. 2020) otherwise require.
Why this matters, per the court’s subsequent ruling (see 2026-09-24–judge-kelly-grants-tro-cnn-politico-msnow-press-passes): Judge Kelly found the government offered no declarations, classified or unclassified, connecting the identified reporting to any actual national-security harm, and found the letters’ own language — “threatened national security and/or spread falsehoods” — left open that the true rationale was viewpoint- and content-based, not security-based. The timing (national security first invoked in litigation, four days after the ban, not at the time of the ban) was itself evidence the court weighed against the government’s theory.
Sourcing note. Docket entry timing and description are confirmed via CourtListener/RECAP. The “late Tuesday night” characterization and the substance of the national-security rationale are confirmed via CNBC, corroborated by the direct quotations from the letters that later appear in Judge Kelly’s TRO opinion (see the September 24 entry).
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Sources & Citations
The Cascade Ledger. “DOJ's Late-Night Response Cites National Security to Justify White House Press Ban — a Rationale Trump Never Gave.” The Capture Cascade Timeline, September 22, 2026. https://capturecascade.org/event/2026-09-22--doj-cites-national-security-cnn-politico-msnow-ban/