Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, has a pretty shady track record. And if you’ve been following Spygate, you know that name. But this is quite the highlight of the Contreras career.
A U.S. district judge on Tuesday ordered the White House to restore Playboy correspondent Brian Karem’s press credentials after the administration said last month it was revoking his hard pass.
Judge Rudolph Contreras said in a court order that he was granting Karem’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block the White House’s move. Karem sued the Trump administration after White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham announced in August that his pass would be suspended through Sept. 14.
Contreras wrote in a 24-page opinion that the White House did not provide the required guidance as to what would warrant the suspension of a hard pass outside a press conference setting and that Karem was likely to succeed on the grounds of his due process claim.
“Meanwhile, Karem has shown that even the temporary suspension of his pass inflicts irreparable harm on his First Amendment rights,” the judge wrote.
A 24-page opinion?
Were 24 pages really required just to write, “I hate Trump and support the media campaign against him.”
Surely, James Madison intended the First Amendment to require that an employee of a pornographic publication have regular access to the President of the United States and the White House. Also, due process arguments are what Obama judges use as a blank check.
According to Judge Contreras, the correspondent for Playboy has a right to be in the White House because he was not told beforehand not to engage in confrontations in the White House. And thus, no due process.
Also he wasn’t told not to soil the lawn, to pluck all the roses while singing racist songs at the top of his lungs or to do any one of a thousand other inappropriate things.
Grisham reasoned that there “had previously been a widely shared understanding that (1) members of the press, at all times at White House press events, must act professionally, maintain decorum and order, and obey instructions from White House staff, and (2) disruptive behavior that interferes with the conduct of a press event or is otherwise a breach of professional decorum—including but not limited to
taunting other members of the press, White House officials, or guests in an effort to provoke a confrontation—is prohibited.”
Good thing the Obama judge disagrees.
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