Maeve Bidonde, Staff Writer
The Associated Press has brought forth a lawsuit against three of President Trump’s top officials, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and Chief of Staff Susan Wiles for blocking the AP’s access to White House events. The AP News has asked a federal judge to end the ten-day long block of AP News’ journals. AP has cited “freedom of press” as the basis of their lawsuit.
It began when AP News refused to change the name of The Gulf of Mexico to The Gulf of America in their articles after the president signed an executive order for the name change. This prompted, what AP News said, was an unconstitutional effort to control the freedom of AP’s speech.
According to CBS News, the AP News wrote in their lawsuit “The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government.”
The White House responded to the lawsuit with White House Communications Director Steven Chung saying, “They are clearly suffering from a severe, debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted their peanut-sized brains. We will defeat them in court just like we crushed their leftist reporters at the ballot box.”
According to CBS News Trump’s response was to say “We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America.” Odds are AP News is not going to give in so easily meaning it is up to the courts to decide who is in the right in this situation.
According to The New York Times, Judge Trevor NcFadden of the US District Court for the District of Columbia has declined any further involvement in the lawsuit. Trevor NcFadden was appointed by Trump and has said that the case is not a dire emergency that requires immediate intervention at this time. However he admitted that the decision to punish AP News over word choices is “viewpoint discrimination.”
Ed Martin, the Interim U.S Attorney in Washington, denounced the lawsuit saying, “As President Trumps’ lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our president and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first.”
Lauren Easton, Spokeswoman for AP News, gave her own statement saying, “We look forward to our next hearing on March 20 where we will continue to stand for the right of the press and the public to speak freely without government retaliation.”
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