The Associated Press has filed suit against three White House officials responsible for banning the organization’s reporters from the Oval Office and other spaces including the president’s aircraft in retaliation for the wire service’s refusal to fully acquiesce to President Donald Trump’s push to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
On Friday, attorneys for the AP filed papers asking for an emergency hearing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and accusing the White House of having “ordered The Associated Press to use certain words in its coverage or else face an indefinite denial of access,” thereby violating the First Amendment.
In the complaint, which names White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as defendants, the wire service’s lawyers wrote that the purpose of the lawsuit is to “vindicate” the AP’s First Amendment rights and to “prevent the Executive Branch from coercing journalists to report the news using only government-approved language.”
The lawsuit is the latest escalation in a war over words which began shortly after Trump was sworn in for his second term on January 20. That day, he signed an executive order purporting to rename the body of water situated between Florida’s western shores, the east coast of Mexico, and bordered on the north by the coasts of Alabama, Louisiana and other states — a body long known as the Gulf of Mexico — as the Gulf of America.
At the time, Trump also ordered the tallest mountain in North America — which Alaska natives refer to as Denali — changed back to Mount McKinley, a name that honors America’s 25th president, William McKinley.
The 18,000-foot mountain had been called by that name in federal records from 1915 through 2015, when the Department of Interior acknowledged that the mountain has long been known in Alaska as Denali. Trump’s re-renaming of the peak has been protested by Alaskan officials, but as president he has the authority to order such a name change within America’s borders.
While the Associated Press has officially recognized the mountain’s name change in the stylebook used by countless news organizations around the world — including The Independent — the organization has hedged when it comes to Trump’s order on the “Gulf of America” by noting that Trump’s order “only carries authority within the United States” and stressing that “Mexico, as well as other countries and international bodies, do not have to recognize the name change.”
Last week, the White House retaliated against the wire service by barring AP reporters from the press pool that enters the Oval Office for so-called “sprays” when the president wishes to speak with the press. Later in the week, a White House official barred an AP reporter from traveling with him to Florida aboard Air Force One. The move ended a near-century during which the AP had been one of the wire services that always participates in coverage as a member of the 13-member press pool.
On Tuesday, Trump himself said the service would continue to be barred from its place in the press pool until it changed its eponymous stylebook to reflect his preferred name for the body of water in question.
“We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America,” Trump said, while speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home. “We’re very proud of this country, and we want it to be the Gulf of America.”
In court papers, the news organization says White House officials “have not provided, nor could they provide, any compelling reason” for barring the AP from its place in the pool and says the move is “impermissibly based on their dislike of the content of the AP’s expression and what they perceive as the AP’s viewpoint reflected in the content of its expression.”
The ban also “constitutes impermissible retaliation, as it was instituted to punish the AP for its constitutionally protected speech in ways that would chill the speech of a reasonable person of ordinary firmness,” the AP added.
The lawsuit asks the court to order the government to immediately restore the AP’s place in the White House press pool and declare that the organization’s Fifth Amendment right to due process and First Amendment right to free speech has been violated.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent. But Leavitt, who spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday just after news of the lawsuit broke, said the White House would see the AP in court and argued that the Trump administration is inviting new media creators and podcasters “who aren't constrained by this legacy media bias” to participate in White House briefings.
“They deserve the privilege of covering the President of the United States just as much as any other legacy media outlet who has spewed lies about President Trump for years,” she said.
