by WorldTribune Staff, November 2, 2023
Today News Africa chief White House correspondent Simon Ateba on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit against White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and the Secret Service, accusing them of unconstitutionally rescinding his White House press badge.
The lawsuit accuses Biden Administration officials of violating Ateba’s First and Fifth Amendment rights in “an unconstitutional attempt to arbitrarily restrict who qualifies as ‘the press.’ ”
On May 5, the White House said it was instituting new rules for press badges, known as hard passes. For the first time in U.S. history, a process was laid out by which journalists could lose their credentials.
The new rules were unveiled weeks after a March 20 briefing at which Ateba confronted Jean-Pierre for not taking his questions for several months.
“This is not China. This is not Russia. What you are doing, you’re making a mockery of the First Amendment,” Ateba told Jean-Pierre at the briefing. “It’s been seven months you’ve not called on me. I’m saying that’s not right.”
As WorldTribune.com reported at the time, “Not surprisingly, as Ateba was taking a stand for the First Amendment, other ‘reporters’ at the briefing were taking the side of their Team Biden overlords.”
Then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson slammed the reporters who pushed back against Ateba:
“Outrageous doesn’t even describe what we just played for you,” the host said after broadcasting a clip of the exchange. “So here you have the White House press secretary whose job it is to answer questions from journalists on behalf of the entire American population hijacking the event to promote a TV show and then screaming at a guy who wants his questions answered.”
“And then the other shills in the room don’t take the side of their fellow journalist, but take the side of the lady at the front to whom they were actually beholden and try and shut down Simon Ateba. Who did that? This is a partial list that would include Jeff Mason of Reuters who should be ashamed, Brian Karem of CNN, Associated Press correspondent Zeke Miller.”
Fox News contributor Joe Concha noted of Jean-Pierre: “She only calls on those she deems as friendly, and then she’ll call on Peter Doocy because obviously she knows that’s something that’s going to be called out on the most-watched cable news network in the country if she does not.”
“Karine Jean-Pierre is a lot like her boss. She doesn’t answer any tough questions. … This is the least transparent presidency of our lifetime.”
Ateba says in the lawsuit that he didn’t apply for a badge renewal by a July 31 deadline because the new rules required credentials from the Capitol or Supreme Court, which he lacked. His badge was terminated July 31, he said, and he subsequently applied for a badge renewal on Aug. 4.
Ateba’s lawsuit, filed by attorney Harmeet Dhillon, states: “Defendants violated Mr. Ateba’s First Amendment rights by changing the criteria for hard pass credentials to intentionally prevent Mr. Ateba from obtaining hard pass access. Defendants did so by adopting credentialing criteria specifically designed to exclude Mr. Ateba from eligibility. Such discrimination amounts to a content-based regulation and viewpoint discrimination against Mr. Ateba in violation of the First Amendment.”
Ateba wrote in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday:
Tomorrow, November 2, 2023, at 10 a.m., I will be in court in Washington DC with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for the first hearing of my First Amendment case against Joe Biden White House. Remember, it’s not just through gag orders, people are being silenced through many means. That the mainstream media is not reporting it is irrelevant. If I win, the White House would be ordered to reactivate the press passes of more than 400 journalists and they would have no choice but to comply. Everyone would report it. As I have said, what makes the United States the greatest country in the world is the First Amendment. This case is not just about me. It’s about a free country where journalists are not being personally targeted because of their questions. May God help me.
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