CNN’s Jim Acosta’s Going to Lose His Press Pass Again

After the Friday ruling, the West Wing moved almost immediately to once again contest his access, sources involved in the negotiations told Axios.

The White House sent CNN a letter Friday giving a chance for Acosta to make the case for continued access.

CNN is headed back to court, probably Monday. They believe the President is violating the First and Fifth Amendments.

Sarah Sanders said on Fox News Sunday that the correspondent grandstands. “[I]f certain reporters like Jim Acosta can’t be adults, then CNN needs to send somebody in there who can be.”

CNN feels they have to fight to protect the tradition of White House access — it’s not a law.

Axios reported that Stelter believes, “From the looks of the letter, the W.H. is trying to establish a paper trail that will empower the administration to boot Acosta again at the end of the month.”

Sanders said Friday in an interview with her father, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, filling in for Sean Hannity: “We’ve laid out in a letter to CNN and their team what we think were some of the missteps that their reporter made at the press conference on November 7th.”

“[T]he judge, I think, was actually very clear that the White House has the ability to say: You can’t come in. You don’t have — freedom of the press doesn’t mean freedom into the White House. And he said there has to be due process. And so that’s what we’re doing and we’ll see what happens from there.”

Sanders added that CNN has “50-plus” journalists who hold passes: “So the idea that they aren’t able to get information that they need from the White House is frankly laughable.”

“[T]radition has been in the past that the White House Correspondents’ Association determines who sits in [the press] room and who sits in those individual seats,” Sanders continued.

In other words, access is tradition, not law.

Trump also told Chris Wallace on ‘Fox News Sunday’ that he could throw Acosta out or stop the news conference or turn the camera off that faces reporters. He admitted he might be sued. “Win or lose, who knows,” he said.

Huckabee said to open up the pressers to reporters from around the country.

My advice to @realDonaldTrump and @PressSec is to invite reporters from around the country to come to @WhiteHouse to cover events. Why should WHCA decide who covers @POTUS ? Open things up to rotating local papers and broadcasters-let them ask questions. That’s REAL free press!

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) November 14, 2018