Reporters Rebuffed at White House Gates
The White House immediately defied an overnight court order lifting President Trump’s purported ban on three news outlets from covering the White House.
Lawyers for CNN, Politico, and MSNow raced back to court this morning seeking an emergency hearing after their reporters were blocked from accessing the White House just hours after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a temporary restraining order requiring the White House to restore “hard pass” credentials to the effected reporters.
Instead of complying with the court order, this is what happened, according to this morning’s filing by CNN, MSNow, and Politico:
The White House turned away journalists from all three news outlets.
A Secret Service agent confiscated the hard passes of journalists from all three organizations.
When CNN’s Betsy Klein, whose hard pass was previously confiscated on Sept. 19, requested to have her hard pass returned, her request was denied and she was refused access to the White House complex.
The Trump DOJ did not respond immediately to inquiries from counsel representing the three news outlets, they said in the filing. They asked the judge to hold teleconference or video conference this morning.
Kelly, a Trump appointee, has given the administration until 12:30 ET to respond.
Trump Admin Defies Another Court Order
Despite a 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruling Friday blocking its policy of third-country removals, the Trump administration was pressing ahead yesterday with additional removals, according to a news report and court filings.
In the case of a Peruvian man it wants to deport to the Central African Republic, the Trump DOJ argued that the appeals court ruling wasn’t in effect yet, the American Prospect reported.
The Trump DOJ reiterated that position in a phone call with lawyers who had brought the 1st Circuit case, and late last night they filed an emergency request for the appeals court to issue its mandate, which would remove any doubt — if there was any — about its ruling being in effect.
The lawyers, who cited the American Prospect’s reporting in their filing, told the appeals court: “Class counsel has learned from multiple sources that a flight holding class members is scheduled to depart tomorrow from Alexandria, Louisianna (sic) with identified destinations as Burundi, Rwanda, and Central African Republic.”
In response, the 1st Circuit issued an order just before midnight dissolving the stay of a lower court order that had blocked the policy — with the effect of making its ruling operative now.
In this very same case, when it was at the lower court in Boston in March 2025, the Trump administration engaged in repeated flagrant violations of court orders by continuing with third-country removals.
Thread of the Day
The American Prospect’s Gillian Brockell, who has been doing exemplary work on third-country removals, has been tracking the latest developments since just before midnight, including flights en route to African countries:
Cuban Wins Release in 3rd Country Case
A federal judge in Brownsville ordered the release of a Cuban tow truck driver from Miami who has lived in the United States for 30 years and who the Trump administration has tried to deport to Mexico at least three different times over the past 15 months.
Reinaldo Moreno-Rodriguez, who has been in ICE custody since June 2025, outlined his harrowing experience in an affidavit in a separate case. He alleges that he was beaten by guards at ICE’s Camp East Montana after he initially refused to get on a bus apparently bound for Mexico.
By his account, Moreno-Rodriguez was taken as far as a border crossing with Mexico and ordered to walk to a waiting bus on the Mexican side. After he began yelling in protest that he was being kidnapped, the Mexican guard refused to accept him, he recounted in the affidavit:
The judge ruled that Moreno-Rodriguez’s continued detention after 15 months in custody is unlawful because “there is currently no plan for Petitioner’s removal—let alone a plan that would secure his removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.” He ordered Moreno-Rodriguez’s release on or before Sept. 26.
New Details on ICE Stop of US Citizen
The NYT has published new video of and interviewed witnesses to ICE agents accosting a U.S. citizen Sunday in Evanston, Illinois. The man suffered injuries to his head, neck, and teeth before the ICE agents left him lying in the street. Local police are investigating the incident.
AI Agents on the Loose
Four newly revealed incidents show that OpenAI agents were engaged in rogue behavior even before the Hugging Face hack. The hacks in May and June involved:
a digital library at the University of New Mexico;
Data USA, a repository of public data about American employment and education;
Australia’s Medicare Statistics Reporting Service;
the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Trump Lawsuit Over Poll Tossed Out
A state judge in Iowa threw out President Trump’s lawsuit against the Des Moines Register, its parent company, and longtime pollster Ann Selzer for having published a poll in the stretch run of the 2024 election that showed him losing badly in the state. Trump ended up winning Iowa handily. Trump claimed the poll was a defective product and sued under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. No dice, the judge ruled.
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Thank you for keeping in our faces the absolute illegal removals and the disgusting abhorrent behavior of ICE agents who are federal employees! F*ck ICE!