Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to arrested the only five and local show that takes you into the belly of our criminal justice system, cohosted by Mike Brooks and Atlanta criminal defense attorney Dan conaway of Conway and strickler pc. Good morning everybody. Welcome to rest where we take a look at current

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legal cases that are in the news and the criminal justice system as it or as a whole and how it could possibly apply to you. I'm your host, Mike Brooks, along with criminal defense attorney Dan conaway. Good morning, Dan. Good Morning Mike. How are you? Good, thanks. Well, we're going to start off today. We're going to start off this morning talking about the case dealing with Jim Acosta, the chief White House correspondent for CNN, who as we all know by now, had his hard pass to the White House and the White House grounds confiscated by the White House after he had a, a, a, a conflict. And I say, I don't think he was very nice, but, uh, but I think president trump and Sarah Huckabee, sanders, I think they'd had enough because this wasn't the first time and they decided when he came back to do his live shot of, for the, for that evening, they decided at the northwest gate where the press comes and goes and visitors come and go from the White House that they were going to take his heart pass. In fact, the night it happened. Here's what Jim Acosta recorded, just to let you listen. And then we'll talk about the case, not in his marriage as a whole.

Speaker 3: 1:40

Why do you mind? I mean, it's, I was just told to do it. Okay. Well, I have every right to record this. Uh, this is Jim Acosta. I am in front of the White House. Uh, secret service officer is asking for my heart pass. Obviously no hard feelings to the officer, but I am now giving my heart pass to the secret service. So do you want to take it off the lanyard there are.

Speaker 4: 2:05

Sure.

Speaker 3: 2:18

If you could hold that, don't want to lose any of that. Sure, sure.

Speaker 4: 2:38

That's been here for a while.

Speaker 3: 2:40

We have been working at the White House for five years covering to administration. So yeah, it's been an nice thing for awhile back here for you. Right. Thank you for your service officer.

Speaker 2: 2:53

So that was the, uh, you know, the back and forth between the uniformed division secret service officer there at the North West Gate and the, uh, a correspondent for the White House for CNN, Jim Acosta, but now cnn is suing president trump and some of his top White House staff and others for a boring Jim Acosta. And they are alleging that Acosta and CNNS first and fifth amendment rights are being violated by the band and taking his heart pass away, but they are also the six defendants that they are suing. Our president, trump chief of staff, John Kelly, press secretary, Sarah Huckabee, Sanders, deputy chief of staff for communications. Bill Shine secret service director, Randolph ells. And see the secret service officer who took a hard pass away from him that night that we just heard. Okay. I can see the, the defendants of the, of the staff that does sewing, but you've got the director of the secret service and you've got this officer, this poor officer who was just doing his job, how can they be involved in this and why? How can their first and Fifth Amendment be violated with this?

Speaker 5: 4:24

Mike? Obviously those are great questions here. And, uh, let's start with the secret service officers. Uh, the issue with the officers is very, very simple and that is that they are the ones who are in charge of providing the passes. They're the ones who do the background checks when someone applies for a press pass and so they would rightfully named leaves the secret service because they're the ones who make the decision and do the background check to determine whether or not the person can actually get a press pass. Now, beyond that, um, the due process clause comes back into play here and again, like we've talked about due process before, we've got due process here with respect to the Fifth Amendment, uh, as it relates to both CNN and Jim Acosta's first amendment rights. So how does that work? Well, the argument is that you have a, obviously right to free speech, but then beyond that you have to balance that with the secret services, right? The president's right to be safe and have control over their own press conferences. Right? So it's a typical balancing act due process, free speech versus president's right to security and the right coordinate the press schedule and run the press conferences the way that they want.

Speaker 2: 5:52

Right? But the other thing is that, you know, jim is not the only correspondent for CNN that has a pass and covers press conferences that the White House. So if they say, I'm sorry, because of your behavior and your past behavior, we were deciding to pull your press pass, then what they'll do with the slime responded only him. So to me there is no, you know, first amendment issue here because it's not like the, uh, CNN is being barred from the White House. There are other other correspondence that we see every single day on CNN besides Jim Acosta, they cover the news at the White House.

Speaker 5: 6:34

Well, Mike, uh, and that brings up a second, very interesting point. You have two plaintiffs here, and a plaintiff is the person that brings a lawsuit, right? And our plaintiffs or who? CNN. Right? And then Jim Acosta, right. All right. So what's interesting about this is that there's one case on point that relates to this really, and it's mentioned in the lawsuit is from 1977 more than 40 years ago. Sheryl versus Knight, director of the United States secret service. All right, so you got Robert Cheryl, who's a reporter, right? So before we get into this, at the time he was working for the nation that I believe, but notice the nation is not one of the plaintiffs. He's not. The Nation is not as, there's no, there's no nation. And there's no CNN, the ABC, there's no CBS in this lawsuit. Back in 1977.

Speaker 2: 7:34

CNN wasn't even around 1970 seventh. Right. And Fox News, they weren't around

Speaker 5: 7:41

back in the old days. Uh, so it's only Cheryl versus the secret service and the others. Right, right. Okay. So who's missing? No news organization. So here CNN is bringing the suit along with Jim Costume. I would argue, and you know, this is, we're on, we're an interesting territory. Absolutely. But I would argue that Jim Acosta may have a decent lawsuit here. He may have legal grounds to bring it. I'm not saying it's going to win, I'm not saying it's going to lose. I'm saying he's got a chance, but I don't see where CNN fits into this because as you mentioned, their first amendment rights have been violated. No, they've got a million reporters,

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but he is their chief White House correspondent.

Speaker 5: 8:35

Who Cares? They've got a million reporters

Speaker 2: 8:38

and they've got. I think I've heard. Yes, I heard a during the week a total of maybe 50 hard passes for CNN crew, you know, sound person, cameraman, reporters, producers, everybody. So they still have 50 passes to the windows

Speaker 5: 8:57

and so there's no way that I can see the CNNS first amendment rights have been violated. Period. Now let's look at the suit. Let's look at your Mecosta sure. Alright. With Jim, the Supreme Court laid out of balancing test given the important first amendment rights here. And this is where he was refused to press pass. Such refusal was required. In other words, the fact that the press pass was refused, has to, has to be based on a compelling governmental interest, compelling governmental interest such as protection to the president or his immediate family. Now here's the interesting, because at first they've said, well, you did this, meaning he laid hands on the intern, right? That was the original reason for voting the path.

Speaker 2: 9:54

Yeah. That end. And because he, his, he was totally disruptive.

Speaker 5: 9:59

Well, that's the thing. I think that CNN and Acosta and the trump and trump as well, and the president and his team are really focused on this language here. Uh, that is in this 1977 supreme court case where it says compelling governmental interest such as protection to the president or his immediate family. Right? So the one side saying, well, you know, he acted in a really bad way. We need to predict president, Yada Yada. But on the other hand, they're missing two words, both sides, I think, was it such as a compelling governmental interest such as Supreme Court left it open right? It could be protection of the president, sure, but it could be something else. It could be, for instance, a Jim Acosta restricting the first amendment rights of all the other members of the press corps by behaving like a show pony.

Speaker 2: 10:59

Exactly. And, and you can hear while while they're telling him that, that's enough. Get to Mike, you know, sit down and sit down. You can hear some of the other reporters actually, uh, in the background. Ms Dot Perez. President is president. So it's the president's press conference, Mike. That's exactly not the Jim Acosta press con, but he has made about him

Speaker 5: 11:18

when he does, when he doesn't ruin that microphone. That's it.

Speaker 2: 11:22

Exactly. So coming up, we're going to be talking about what the filing by president trump and the justice department last Wednesday was an answer to this lawsuit against president trump and some of his top aides when arrested with Mike Brooks and defense attorney, Dan conaway continues.