Washington DC: US news outlets MS NOW and CNN said on Thursday that they had been granted access to the White House.
Earlier on Thursday, journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were barred from the White House despite a federal judge having deemed US President Donald Trump's ban on the three news outlets likely unconstitutional and ordered their access immediately restored.
The news organisations responded by requesting an immediate hearing before US District Judge Tim Kelly, whose ruling overnight ordered a halt to the ban for 14 days in a major setback for Trump. It is the latest in a series of confrontations over press freedom that have played out over the past week in the courtroom and on White House grounds.
Kelly found that the revocation of the White House credentials of the journalists "likely violated their constitutional due process rights."
The judge, whom Trump appointed in 2017 during his first presidential term, also raised doubts about the US Department of Justice's national security arguments for justifying the ban, noting that Trump himself had said the action was due to what the president alleged was false or negative coverage.
Just hours after the ruling, however, the outlets still had not gained access to the White House. Whether that was due to intentional defiance of Kelly's order or confusion among White House security staff and systems remained unclear.