The Jim Acosta Ruling: Incomprehensible

Yesterday, a federal judge in Washington ordered the White House to restore the press pass of CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta. This follows Acosta’s pass being pulled after his disruptive behavior at a press conference held by President Trump.

Perhaps just as troubling, Judge Timothy Kelly has not even explained the rationale behind his ruling. Conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin called the judge’s office and asked a staffer for the reasoning or whether the judge would post the reasoning for purposes of public information. He got nowhere.

To me, this is a blatant case of the abuse of judicial power. Where does it say that Jim Acosta or any other reporter has a right to a White House press pass? Where is the law that deals with that? What allows a judge to dictate to the Executive Branch how they run the White House? We have already seen renegade judges trying to tell the Executive Branch that they cannot deny visas to people who may pose a threat to the United States.

One might argue that the action of taking away Acosta’s pass was petulant. Even so (and I don’t agree that it was), there is no legal point here. It is not against the law to be petulant. The White House sets the rules. If you don’t believe that, try to just brush past the Secret Service security guards at the gate. For a judge to say that the White House cannot enforce its rule of behavior is absurd.

Jim Acosta’s behavior since Day One of the Trump presidency has been unprofessional, arrogant and rude. He views his role as doing everything he can to discredit this particular president. It is OK to ask hard, critical questions, something CNN rarely did under President Obama. There are rules of decorum, however. You can’t take over a White House briefing to the exclusion of other reporters who want to ask questions in a limited time frame. You don’t refuse to surrender the microphone to an intern as Acosta churlishly did. Acosta embarrassed his employer, a fact lost on CNN and the other networks who rushed to his defense.

So where do we go from here? I would guess that Trump will instruct his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, not to call on Acosta at the briefings. Does Judge Kelly step in again with an order that Acosta must be called upon? Does he find Ms Sanders in contempt if she refuses to call on Acosta? Does he throw her in jail? Absurd, you say?

It’s already absurd.