Six private citizens sued President Trump on Monday, October 26, arguing that the White House's practice of expelling news organizations it calls "fake news" violates the First Amendment rights of the public that relies on their reporting, not only the rights of the outlets.
The case, Roth v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-09327, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School, according to the Knight Institute's case page. The plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction the same day.
Besides Trump, the suit names White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, communications director Steven Cheung and Secret Service Director Sean M. Curran, the Associated Press reported via ABC News.
Who is suing
The plaintiffs are Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch and a Yale lecturer, the journalist Daniel Froomkin, editor of Press Watch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale historian Beverly Gage, the New York City high school social studies teacher Peter Schmidt-Nowara, Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes and Ethan Young, a University of Pennsylvania student and editor-in-chief of The Daily Pennsylvanian.
"I joined this lawsuit because my students deserve to know what's happening in their government," Schmidt-Nowara said, according to the AP.
The bans being challenged
The suit follows a series of moves by the White House against news outlets, according to the AP. Reporters for The Associated Press were barred last year from the Oval Office, Air Force One and some events after the AP declined to adopt the "Gulf of America" name for the Gulf of Mexico. That case is continuing.
In September, journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were banished from the White House. On October 13, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a preliminary injunction in CNN v. Trump blocking the administration from barring the three outlets from White House press facilities, the Knight Institute said in a statement. That ruling did not address the continued exclusion of CNN and Politico from the press pool, the small group of reporters who cover the president in places like the Oval Office. The White House is still denying CNN its usual pool slots, and CNN has threatened further action, the AP reported.
What the filing actually says
The new case differs from the outlets' own suits in two ways, according to the Knight Institute and the AP.
The first is who is injured. The outlets argued that their own rights were violated. The citizens argue that the "ultimate injury" falls on the democratic public, and that the First Amendment protects the public's right to know what its government is doing. Their complaint calls the policy "an unconstitutional attack on the public's right to trustworthy and undistorted reporting," per the Knight case page.
The second is the kind of space at issue. In CNN v. Trump, Judge Kelly found the ban was a viewpoint-based restriction in a nonpublic forum and also violated the outlets' due process rights, according to the Knight Institute. The citizens argue the White House press spaces are a "public forum." The AP reported that the complaint also describes the policy as a viewpoint-based and unreasonable restriction on a limited public forum. In practice, the label matters because courts give the government more room to set rules in a nonpublic forum, though viewpoint discrimination is barred in every type.
The relief sought is also broader. Instead of reinstating particular outlets, the suit asks for a declaration that the policy is unconstitutional and an injunction protecting every outlet that covers the White House from retaliation, now and in the future.
What each side says
"The White House cannot decide what information Americans receive by punishing critical reporting," said Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight Institute. David A. Schulz of the Yale clinic described journalists as the public's "eyes and ears" in spaces it cannot enter, the institute said.
An unidentified White House official told the AP, "No person may demand access to the Oval Office," and said outlets that peddle "misinformation and defamation are completely capable of reporting their manufactured stories from directly outside."
Timeline, by the newsroom
2025: AP reporters are barred from the Oval Office, Air Force One and some events.
September 2026: CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists are expelled.
October 13, 2026: Judge Kelly enjoins the ban on the three outlets from press facilities.
October 26, 2026: Roth v. Trump and a preliminary injunction motion are filed in Manhattan.
A threshold question for the citizens will be standing, whether people who read the news, rather than reporters who were barred, have been injured enough to sue. Courts have pushed back on the administration in other recent fights, including over Maurene Comey's firing and over taxpayer-funded DHS ads.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
