There has been a historic update in the investigation into Thomas Matthew Crooks, the man responsible for firing eight rounds from a semi-automatic AR-15-style rifle at President Donald Trump during his July 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

President Donald Trump made a statement on the status of the investigation into Crook’s Butler assassination attempt last week that changes the entire outlook of the shooting.

The President wrote on his Truth Social feed that the Department of Justice, under former President Joe Biden and former FBI Director Christopher Wray, had largely deleted any information pertaining to Crooks or the assassination attempt before he took office in January of 2025.

The President wrote on his feed: “Everybody knows the Crooked Joe Biden FBI didn’t do what they should have with respect to the Lunatic who shot me in Butler, PA. By the time I got into Office, on January 20th, most of the information was missing, altered, corrupted, or gone. New info was just found! Why wasn’t it seen long ago? This was all a Democrat Plot, to get me out of the Election, that failed. Dirty Cop Christopher Wray should pay a price for the way he handled this assassination attempt, and certainly for the things he said. GOD BLESS AMERICA, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

President Donald Trump’s statement reveals yet another one of the greatest political scandals of our time.

Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, working with elements of the Deep State and former FBI Director Christopher Wray moved to cover up an assassination attempt against their chief political rival. This revelation further raises questions as to the authenticity of Crooks, and who he may have been communicating with prior to the rally.

The President’s comments came just hours after documents from the Senate Judiciary Committee revealed that Thomas Matthew Crooks had his cremation paid for by an ‘anonymous donor’ after his parents refused to pay for his cremation for financial reasons.

That same report also revealed that Crooks had ordered his firearm through the mail, with pieces delivered to a ‘Bob Dole’ at his home address.

The Many Anomalies Of The Near-Assassination of President Donald Trump on July 13^th, 2024

I have been reporting on the anomalies surrounding the Crooks Assassination attempt since that fateful day in Butler, of which there are many.

Local officers (Beaver County Emergency Services Unit countersnipers) saw Crooks using a rangefinder and looking toward the stage before the rally in Butler began that day.

They photographed him and radioed/texted the concern. One contemporaneous message around 5:38 p.m. said he was “looking towards stage” with the device.

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that Crooks flew a DJI drone over the area around 3:50–4:00 p.m. (roughly two hours before the shooting) for about 11 minutes, approximately 200 yards from the stage. He watched a live feed on the controller. The drone and controller were later recovered from his car.

Crowds pointed and shouted about a man on the roof for roughly two minutes before shots.

The AGR complex (the building Crooks used) was left outside the Secret Service secure perimeter despite known line-of-sight to the stage. No one from any agency was assigned to the roof. Local snipers inside the building thought the outer area and roofs were someone else’s job.

Video posted after shooting shows what appears to be Crooks shuffling on the roof prior to the shots being fired at President Donald Trump.

Approximately 22 seconds before Crooks fired, A Senate report found, a local officer sent a radio alert that there was an armed individual on the building.

But that information was not relayed to key Secret Service personnel who were interviewed by Senate investigators.

The Senate panel also interviewed a Secret Service counter-sniper who said that they saw officers with their guns drawn running toward the building where the shooter was perched, but the person said they did not think to notify anyone to get Trump off the stage.

Another troubling finding from the bipartisan Senate investigation was how technical issues downed Secret Service drones during the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The agent responsible for overseeing the Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) called a toll free 888 tech support hotline ‘to start troubleshooting with the company.’ There were no backups.

It took several hours to get the drones back up and running – and the agent responsible for the drone operations only had three months of experience with the equipment.

USSS denied specific on-the-ground requests for additional C-UAS drone capabilities and a Counter Assault Team liaison in Butler that day.

Investigators found that there was no clear chain of command among the Secret Service and other security agencies and no plan for coverage of the building where the shooter climbed up to fire the shots.

Officials were operating on multiple, separate radio channels, leading to missed communications, and an inexperienced drone operator was stuck on a help line after his equipment wasn’t working correctly.

Communications among security officials were a ‘multi-step game of telephone,’ Peters said.

Who Was Thomas Matthew Crooks? Investigation Reveals More Facts About The Shooter

Thomas Mattew Crooks was born to his parents, Matthew and Mary Crooks, on September 20^th, 2003 in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh suburb.

He grew up in a modest family home in Bethel Park with his parents, Matthew and Mary Crooks, both licensed professional counselors. He had an older sister, Katherine.

He was often characterized as quiet, intelligent, and socially withdrawn. Reports mention limited disciplinary issues growing up.

Crooks attended local public schools, including Bethel Park High School. He graduated high school in 2022 with high honors.

He received a $500 “star award” from the National Math and Science Initiative and belonged to the National Technical Honor Society. He scored 1530 on the SAT, which is considered to be an incredibly high score.

Crooks earned an associate degree in engineering science from the Community College of Allegheny County, graduating with high honors in May 2024.

He had planned to continue at Robert Morris University for mechanical engineering. The college reported no disciplinary issues in his records.

He worked as a dietary aide (kitchen/food-prep role) at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, a job he held for several years. Employers said he passed a background check and raised no concerns.

The trove of files includes FBI interviews with Thomas’ father, Matthew, who revealed he “never really had a father/son bond” with the gunman, and that his stoic son rarely expressed strong emotions, hardly laughed and was very difficult to read.

Thomas started getting into shooting and guns as a teenager, though he had little interest in the outdoorsman life, Matthew said he briefly took interest in hunting but said he couldn’t envision him actually killing an animal. He also “hated” fishing.

Matthew said his conversations with Thomas during this period were usually brief and gun-related, such as the then-teen wondering if “he would have to do a background check” to buy his dad’s Glock, a question he told investigators he considered “odd.”

He also asked if he could have his grandfather’s guns. Video has since surfaced of Crooks dry-firing a handgun in his bedroom.

CHILLING VIDEO OF THOMAS CROOKS SHOWS TRUMP SHOOTER PRACTICING WITH HANDGUN IN BEDROOM! pic.twitter.com/EOZpQUypWM

— Scott Adams (@scottadamsshow) November 14, 2025

Thomas started going to the gun club around the time of the pandemic and was a “terrible” shot — “he could not hit the paper [target],” Matthew told investigators, estimating it took 4-5 years of practice before he could even do that.

Eventually, with practice, Thomas became a better marksman, coming home with range targets showing off to his dad how well he did with a target placed over 100 yards away.

After he questioned his son about why he was “going out so far,” Thomas explained, “he wanted to see how far he could shoot with rudimentary sights.”

He found he was able to shoot even further distances after he bought a prism sight, eventually becoming “very knowledgeable” about how to measure and zero-in on a target, and knew exactly how many clicks it would take to change the specific angle on the sight.

As Thomas’ interest in guns grew, he started buying large numbers of Amazon packages, including “parts, tools and items to increase the capacity of his rifle.”

He took to using the pseudonym “Bob Dole” for his delivery address, a bit of misguided paranoia he picked up after his father’s Citizens Bank checking account was hacked and several fraudulent BetMGM charges were made on his account.

Matthew said Thomas believed if one were to purchase items under a pseudonym, such as the ex-GOP presidential candidate’s moniker, the buyer could never be hacked. The father explained that wasn’t how it worked, and that even under an assumed name for deliveries, the charge is still being made to a bank account under his name.

He also coached Matthew how to use identity-obscuring software like CyberGhost VPN and the Bravenet Browser — which Thomas would argue made them “less likely to be compromised by outside actors.”

Matthew further recalled Thomas using multiple different, privacy-focused encrypted email providers, including GMX and Mailfence.

It was around this time Thomas obtained a 3D printer, and once brought home a large container of an unknown substance he claimed was needed to clean it.

Matthew said he once tried to fashion his own handgun, which nearly ended in disaster.

“Using carbon fiber plastic, a dryer and a toaster oven, Thomas did once create a Glock 19,” Matthew told investigators.

But he said after he discharged a single round from it, he feared the frame would explode, and would not allow Thomas to use it.

From all angles, Crooks appears to be a lonely individual who was coaxed into committing political violence by somebody, yet no accomplice has yet to be revealed. Despite the fact that authorities flagged Crooks as a ‘suspicious person’ who was communicating on his phone and ‘not paying attention to the rally’ on the day of the shooting.

Reports claim that Crooks purchased the ammunition he would use during the attack that very morning, just before coming to the site of the rally to do his drone surveillance.

The documents revealed through the Senate Judiciary Committee reveal the similarities between Crooks and Lee Harvey Oswald, along with other political assassins throughout modern history. A lone gunman, acting without collaboroation.

As you can see through my New York Times Best-Selling book The Man Who Killed Kennedy, the evidence shows that Oswald collaborated with many different groups prior to the assassination of JFK, and that Lyndon Baines Johnson had the most to gain from Kennedy’s assassination. I lay out the facts in that work, which you can find at Barnes and Noble, online, or really any bookstore.

That leads us to the obvious question about Butler, given the time it happened, the effect Donald Trump’s potential assassination would have had on the 2024 election, and the impact it would have had on the psyche of the American people, who had the most to gain from a potential assassination that day?

Given the failures of our own government agencies, who at the time were under the direction of President Joe Biden, who also covered up the evidence surrounding Crooks prior to his leaving office, we are left wondering If the Democrat Party was complicit in this assassination attempt, or perhaps the very “Deep State” President Donald Trump has spent his entire political career fighting against.

There needs to be a full investigation into the DOJ officials who handled this case prior to President Donald Trump taking office.

We must get to the bottom of who exactly worked to cover-up facts surrounding this assassination attempt, and bring them to justice. The time to act is now.

The Eerie Similarities Between Lee Harvey Oswald and Thomas Matthew Crooks

When examining the scenarios which led to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump by Thomas Matthew Crooks in 2024, the similarities are impossible to ignore.

Crooks ordered over 25 gun accessories and parts to his home address using an alias, fearing that his identity would be exposed. Lee Harvey Oswald ordered his rife through the mail, using the alias “A. Hidell” / “Alek Hidell.”

Both Oswald and Crooks were young men in their early 20s from relatively ordinary backgrounds who were described by many who knew them as quiet, socially isolated, or hard to read.

Each killed at least one bystander in addition to wounding the intended target. Neither left a clear manifesto. Investigators in both cases struggled to pin down a single, coherent motive.

Both showed mixed or contradictory political signals.

Both men took action to kill the most important political figure of their time, one successfully, and another unsuccessfully.

The government has also worked to obscure evidence surrounding both alleged shooters, classifying documents to ensure secrecy.

Over two years after the near-assassination of President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and we know no more about Thomas Crooks today than we did they day that he fired the shot.

Who was Crooks communicating with in Butler that day? Why was he able to fly a drone around the site of the rally with Secret Service present, unable to fly their own drones for surveillance?

Why was the AGR building, from which Crooks took his shots, left unattended by Secret Service despite the fact that it was well-within the range which requires rooftop surveillance?

Why did law enforcement act so slowly, even as people screamed and warned of a shooter minutes before Crooks ever fired a single bullet?

We don’t have an honest set of facts when it comes to Butler shooting. That much is clear.

What did Joe Biden, Christopher Wray, and others in government fear being revealed in the Crooks investigation?

Why did they move to delete this crucial, relevant, and historical evidence before President Donald Trump took office?

There must be a complete investigation into the deletion of this information. The American people deserve the truth.

Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed democratic socialist from Vermont, and Rep. Mark Takano are back with the same idea they have shopped for years. Their proposed legislation, the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, would rewrite federal overtime law so 32 hours counts as a full week, with no cut in pay. Takano introduced the House bill, H.R. 10323, on Sept. 8. It does not ban a 40-hour week. It makes hours 33 through 40 overtime, then keeps going.

This is not their first time at the rodeo with this topic. Takano first dropped a 32-hour bill in 2021 and again in 2023. Sanders ran a Senate version in 2024 and used a Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to sell it. The New York Post covered that last run on March 14, 2024, as a push for a 32-hour week with no loss in pay, the same overtime rewrite now being refiled.

The press release leaves out the phase-in. Signing the bill would not cut the workweek that day. The first change could not begin until at least 180 days later. Overtime would then apply after 38 hours in the first year of that window, 36 in the second, and 34 in the third. Only after that third year would the threshold fall to 32 hours. A covered employee still working 40 hours a week would then be owed eight hours of time-and-a-half.

The bill also writes daily overtime into the Fair Labor Standards Act: time and a half after eight hours in a day, double time after 12. California and a few other states already do that. Most of the country does not. Employers can still ask for the extra hours. They just pay more for them. They also cannot cut weekly pay or benefits because the legal week got shorter. Newsweek laid out the mechanics.

If a shop still needs 40 hours of coverage, the worker keeps the old weekly check and collects overtime on hours 33 through 40. Same hours. Higher payroll. Or the employer hires more people, or it shortens the schedule and lives with less coverage.

The bill only reaches workers the FLSA already treats as nonexempt: mostly people who punch a clock, plus some salaried staff who fail the exemption tests. Executive, administrative, and professional employees who meet those tests stay outside the rule. So do independent contractors. A restaurant, a plant, a hospital, or a warehouse that runs on hourly labor takes the cost. A salaried office does not, unless those workers are already owed overtime.

Sanders calls a 32-hour week “not a radical idea.” He says AI and robots will throw off huge gains and those gains should not stop with “a handful of billionaires.” He also repeats the line about nearly $80 trillion moving from the bottom 90% to the top 1 percent, a talking point he has used for years, not a score of this statute. The bill text itself does not mention AI.

Takano says work has changed and the labor statute has not. Unions backing it include the AFL-CIO, SEIU, UAW, National Nurses United, the flight attendants, and UFCW. House cosponsors at introduction were Pramila Jayapal, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Lou Correa, and Delia Ramirez.

The last time Congress shortened the federal week, it phased the overtime line down from 44 hours to 40 by 1940. USA Today noted what everyone in the building already knows. Republicans control the House and Senate, so the bill is going to the Education and Workforce Committee to sit.

Sen. Bill Cassidy made that case at the 2024 hearing. “It would kill jobs and increase inflation,” he said, as reported by the New York Post.

A four-day week a company chooses is one thing. Federal law already allows that. A four-day overtime trigger forced on every covered employer is another. Until a Republican Congress decides American shops should pay time and a half starting Thursday afternoon, 40 hours is still the week.

The national argument over artificial intelligence is splitting in two directions at once, and the tension is the story: Washington refuses a federal slowdown while local maps keep adding friction. In Washington, President Trump has spent the week calling existential-risk warnings a “hoax,” arguing that the only guardrail the industry needs is a “strong and smart” president and that a slowdown would hand the lead to China.

In a Wall Street Journal column, Matthew Continetti wrote that Trump is following the data on data centers and is right about their economic and national-security importance.

Several frontier-lab executives have asked for tighter limits on the most capable systems. Trump’s reply is that industry leaders almost never ask for rules that would shrink their own companies. He likened the doomer warnings to climate alarm and told an All-In Summit crowd, after putting Nvidia’s Jensen Huang on speakerphone, that robots are not about to take over.

Many in Washington agree with the president: overreaching regulations or a pause would be a gift to China, which is closing the model gap and already running a different, more centralized playbook.

A great example of this business model sits just outside Washington, in Loudoun County, Virginia, known as “Data Center Alley.” Loudoun now has more than 250 facilities and a share of global internet traffic that local boosters still treat as a point of pride. Northern Virginia already packs in more servers than any other place on Earth.

FOX News reported the fiscal result this week. Tax Foundation economist Jared Walczak says data centers supply about 45% of Loudoun’s local tax revenue and that the average homeowner would pay about $5,800 more a year without that base. County budget figures are slightly tighter: about $1.2 billion and 39% of the budget in FY26, with $1.3 billion and about 40% projected for FY27. The campuses take up only about 3% of the county’s land.

That $5,800 is a counterfactual tax bill, not a check. Without the data-center base, the residential rate would have to jump from $0.805 toward about $1.537 per $100 of assessed value.

• The county cut the homeowner rate from $1.145 per $100 of assessed value in 2016 to $0.805 in 2026.
• It also cut the vehicle tax from $4.15 toward $3.09. Data-center equipment still pays $4.15.

Schools, fire service, and roads are what the rest of the county gets from the same money.

The backlash is no longer theoretical. Loudoun ended “by-right” siting on March 18, 2025, so new projects face a harder local vote. Grandfathering of earlier applications is still a live fight this month. Statewide, Virginia’s HB 1515 would freeze final approvals until grid interconnection catches up, or until July 1, 2028; the bill was carried into next year’s session rather than enacted. Across the country, hundreds of cities and counties have adopted temporary moratoriums. Georgia’s local map is especially crowded.

As of mid-September, no state has a permanent ban on AI data centers. New York paused new hyperscale permits for a limited time. Texas paused new ERCOT hookups pending an audit, not construction. About 16 legislatures have introduced statewide stops; most have not become law. On Polymarket, as of Sept. 19, traders priced a 68% chance that at least one state enacts a statewide moratorium by the end of 2026.

Put the two stories together and the “AI panic” is not one national mood. It is a set of local bills. White House officials say the race is with China and will not order a federal pause. Loudoun’s budget already treats the data-center base as a success. That base now covers about 40% of the county budget. The savings show up in schools, fire service, roads, and a lower tax bill, not as a check in the mail.

On Monday, former CIA Director John Brennan’s lawyer Ken Wainstein put it on the record: prosecutors have ordered Brennan to appear before a federal grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida, on October 15.

Wainstein said the subpoena was handed over last Thursday and that it sits inside a Justice Department conspiracy investigation into whether former law-enforcement and intelligence officials spent the last decade stripping President Trump of his civil rights. That is how the government described the case to Brennan’s own counsel, as reported by FOX NEWS. 

On September 11, prosecutor Kurt Olsen told Wainstein there were two live cases. Florida is the conspiracy case. Washington is the narrower one: whether Brennan lied to Congress in 2023 about the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, the document that put the phony Trump-Russia collusion story into official form and told the country Vladimir Putin wanted Trump in the White House.

The government’s theory is not subtle. The Russia investigation, the later prosecutions, and the apparatus around them were not separate episodes. They were one effort to use the government against Trump, first as president and then as a private citizen. Brennan is a subject of the Florida file, which runs from Mar-a-Lago outward. His lawyers deny he lied. Prosecutors have not walked it back.

The paper trail is why that theory no longer reads like a cable-news slogan. Brennan’s own handwritten notes from the August 3, 2016 White House Situation Room briefing — declassified by DNI John Ratcliffe on October 6, 2020 — record that he told Obama, Biden, Comey, Clapper, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch about alleged approval by Hillary Clinton of a plan “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.”

John Brennan’s handwritten notes, declassified by DNI John Ratcliffe on October 6, 2020 (HG06201–HG06202). Unredacted lines record alleged Clinton approval on July 26 of a proposal “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services,” then the follow-on line “Any evidence of collaboration between Trump campaign + Russia,” with POTUS, JC, Denis, and Susan marked in the margin.

CIA sent the FBI a formal referral on that stream. Comey’s notes from that fall include the shorthand “HRC plan to tie Trump.” The pages are real. Judicial Watch is still in court trying to force the CIA to release them unredacted.

Weeks later Brennan put a second position in writing. CIA mission-center leaders told him the Steele dossier failed basic tradecraft and should stay out of the Intelligence Community Assessment. He overruled them. The agency’s own later review quotes his line: “my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.”

Officers in the room said that when they listed the dossier’s flaws, Brennan answered, “Yes, but doesn’t it ring true?” According to the House Judiciary referral dated October 21, 2025, that account is among multiple sources that reveal Brennan’s support for including the dossier in the ICA. The finished ICA then pointed readers to an annex that was a two-page Steele summary and used it as support for the judgment that Putin “aspired” to help Trump.

In May 2023 Brennan told Congress the CIA was “very much opposed” to including the dossier, that it was the FBI’s purview, and that he did not overturn judgments in the document. Those sentences are the Washington false-statements case. The notes are the exhibit.

The timing of the Florida subpoena is awkward, served the same day Joe diGenova, the prosecutor leading the conspiracy investigation, abruptly resigned. Reporting from Washington says the Justice Department and the White House were unhappy with the pace. The subpoena went out anyway.

Hours after Kenneth Wainstein’s filing became public Monday, Brennan was already in a Washington courtroom asking a judge to order the government to preserve every record from the investigations aimed at him. If an indictment follows, he will argue vindictive prosecution. That is not the move of a man who thinks this is theater.

Fort Pierce is the same federal courthouse that has already spent a year pulling documents on the 2017 assessment, the Steele material, and the officials who sold the collusion story.

Durham treated reports of a Clinton plan to link Trump to Russia as incoming Russian intelligence that the FBI failed to work. Mueller found no Trump campaign conspiracy with Moscow.

What the notes prove is knowledge at the top, in real time. Brennan briefed Obama. For years he was on television explaining why Trump was the problem. That is the room Brennan walks into on October 15.

The Russian collusion hoax against Trump is the greatest single dirty trick in American political history. A subpoena is not a guilty verdict. Will anyone be held accountable?

The Soros PACs aren’t waiting for October. They’re already writing the checks.

Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic Senate primary talking like a reformer. “The fundamental corruption of our politics has been the system that allows corporations and would-be oligarchs and billionaires to buy politicians,” he said in 2025. He wants to “get money out of politics.”

He does not need a check with George Soros’s name on it. Democracy PAC is among Senate Majority PAC’s largest donors. The path is simple: Democracy PAC funds Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with Chuck Schumer. Senate Majority PAC is spending $30 million to elect him.

On Sept. 28 he is booked at the West Hollywood home of Jeffrey Soros; George’s nephew, and Jeffrey’s wife, Catharine. Hosts include Pod Save America’s Jon Favreau, Tom Vietor, and Ben Rhodes. Guests can give up to $57,800 to his Victory Fund. Jeffrey is the son of Paul and Daisy Soros, whose fellowship later supported El-Sayed’s medical training at Columbia.

He is talking to Michigan. The money is not from Michigan.

El-Sayed is still raising through ActBlue, now under a House probe over fraudulent and possible foreign donations.

FEC data reviewed by the New York Post put the family’s midterm haul at about $102.8 million as of late June, almost all through Democracy PAC, not in George Soros’s own name. His 2022 midterm record was $128 million. They still have weeks to pass it.

Those figures are mid-year. Later FEC reports, and 501(c)(4) filings that can sit for a year, will not catch up until after Election Day.

George Soros handed the political operation to his son Alex, now the husband of Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, between 2022 and 2023. The checks did not get smaller. They got quieter.

El-Sayed can keep reading the latest progressive script. He is running against the billionaires on their money.

Much has been reported about the potential legality of President Donald Trump’s decision to ban CNN, MSNOW (formerly MSNBC), and Politico from the White House press pool for their repeated abuse of their position to lie about the President, and ultimately the country.

It’s no secret that President Donald Trump has faced unprecedented and unmatched media scrutiny since he first announced his candidacy for President back in 2015. The media has attempted, since they day he has entered politics, to viciously malign the President with false scandals, big lies, and fake news.

Instead of simply allowing outlets such as CNN, MSNOW, and Politico to spew their lies unchallenged, President Donald Trump has taken action. Trump issued an announcement from his Truth Social feed last week that the three outlets mentioned previously would no longer have access to the White House press pool, citing their negative and distorted coverage.

The backlash from the Democrat-Media complex has been swift and unanimous, as it was announced today that even Fox News has removed their team from the White House press pool in solidarity with CNN, Politico, and MSNOW in protest of the President’s decision.

ABC, CBS, and NBC have also announced that they will no longer be participating in the White House press pool in protest.

CNN falsely characterized the ban as an attack on free speech. Emily Kuhn, CNN spokeswoman said on September 18^th in a statement, “We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government. Should the ban which President Trump threatened go ahead, it would be an illegal assault on that fundamental and constitutionally-protected right.”

Politico issued a similar statement, writing, “We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights against any attempt to restrict them.”

MSNOW echoed the sentiment of the previous two, writing, “MS NOW intends to take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalism in our democracy.”

These outlets didn’t just save their words for statements, either. The three organizations, this morning, filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s Administration over the ban, citing free speech concerns.

A joint statement recognizing the lawsuit issued this morning reads, “This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes. Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

Ted Boutrous, the attorney representing the three outlets, who also happens to be the same lawyer who represented CNN in the 2018 Jim Acosta case, said today about the lawsuit, ““The President’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from the White House is a direct assault on the First Amendment and a blatant violation of due process. The President has been explicit that this ban is intended to punish reporting he doesn’t like and to intimidate journalists and news organizations covering him and his administration.”

The outlets are making it clear. They believe that President Donald Trump’s actions against them are a direct violation of their free speech rights. Luckily, we have had 250 years of judicial precedent on issues such as these throughout American history, and many such cases specifically involving the direct access media organizations are legally obligated to have to politicians have been settled.

A close examination of these cases reveals that President Donald Trump has every right, as adjudicated by the Supreme Court of the United States of America, to remove communist, fake news outlets such as CNN from the White House press pool. Here are the decisions and how they impact the lawsuit filed by CNN, MSNOW, and Politico against the White House.

Zemel v. Rusk (1965)

In the early 1960s, Louis Zemel was an American citizen that wanted his passport validated so he could travel to Cuba “to satisfy [his] curiosity” and become a better-informed citizen after the U.S. broke relations with Castro. The State Department refused.

Zemel argued the ban violated his First Amendment right to gather information. The Supreme Court (6-3) upheld the restriction.

Chief Justice Warren wrote the key line in the case, writing, “The right to speak and publish does not carry with it an unrestrained right to gather information.”

The Court added that “the prohibition of unauthorized entry into the White House diminishes the citizen’s opportunities to gather information… but that does not make entry into the White House a First Amendment right.”

The White House is government property. The Court itself used the White House as the example of a place the public, and therefore the press, has no constitutional right to enter.

Denying CNN, Politico, or MS NOW physical access does not, under this holding, automatically violate the First Amendment simply because those outlets want to report from inside the building.

Pell v. Procunier (1974) and companion case Saxbe v. Washington Post

In the early 1970s, California prison rules banned face-to-face interviews with specific inmates chosen by journalists.

Reporters and prisoners sued, claiming a First Amendment right of access.The Court rejected the claim.

Justice Stewart wrote that “the First Amendment does not guarantee the press a constitutional right of special access to information not available to the public generally.”

Journalists could still visit prisons, talk to inmates they encountered, and interview people at random, the same access the public had, plus a little extra.

They just could not demand interviews with particular prisoners. A companion case, Saxbe v. Washington Post, applied the same rule to federal prisons.

White House press credentials and briefing-room access have never been available to the general public.

They are a limited privilege the Executive Branch has historically controlled. Pell is the case most often cited for the proposition that the press has no constitutional right to locations or interviews that ordinary citizens cannot get.

This case yet again illustrates, through the precedent that the First Amendment does not provide journalists special access, that the President is well within his legal right to ban these outlets from the White House.

Houchins v. KQED (1978)

In the mid-70s, a local TV station wanted to inspect and film a specific part of a county jail after a suicide, including interviews and cameras. The sheriff offered only the same public tours given to everyone else. The station sued for special media access.The Court (plurality) held there is no First Amendment right of access to government information or facilities under government control.

Chief Justice Burger’s opinion contains the other line your friend quoted: the First Amendment “is neither a Freedom of Information Act nor an Official Secrets Act.”

The press’s protection is the right to communicate information it has obtained, not a right to collect it from the government on demand.

If the public is excluded, the press can be excluded too. Any extra access is a policy choice for the political branches, not a constitutional mandate.

This is the strongest of the three precedents for the administration’s position. The White House grounds, Oval Office, and briefing room are government-controlled spaces.

The Court said the Constitution does not require the government to open those spaces to journalists beyond whatever access it already gives the public, which, in practice, is almost none.

Under no circumstance is the President violating the First Amendment right of any of these organization, or any Americans by revoking access to the White House for nefarious “news outlets” that simply exist to peddle the narratives desired by the ruling class.

President Donald Trump was elected to end the bureaucratic control of America that saw our jobs leave our shores, our factories shuttered, and our way of life decimated. The news agencies banned by the President have not only tolerated that agenda of degradation instituted by our ruling class, but assisted in furthering it.

The American people deserve honest reporting. Especially about the President of the United States. His move is a brilliant step in the direction of truth, based in absolute law and fact.