Conspiracy
Judge Orders Three Outlets Reinstated, Discovers Their Seats Were Given To TruthHammer Weekly
By Tah Foil, . BSN Network. Satire.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration this week to restore press briefing access to three news organizations it had banned, ruling the revocations unconstitutional. The Associated Press, Reuters and a third outlet whose name administration officials reportedly could not recall during the hearing were directed back to their seats. The seats, upon inspection, had been reassigned.
The new occupant, identified in briefing room records as Dale Furth, publisher of TruthHammer Weekly, a Substack newsletter with 847 subscribers, had been credentialed in February under what the White House Communications Office described as a "expanded access initiative for credible independent voices in the new media landscape." Dale covers, per his own bio, "everything they don't want you to know, and also grilling."
Dale did not wish to give up the seat.
"I've been here every day," Furth told reporters gathered outside the briefing room door. "I've built something here. I've got a system. My water bottle is literally right there."
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, addressed the ruling at Thursday's briefing, describing it as "a judicial overreach that will be challenged vigorously while we also fully comply with it and also explore our options." She then took twelve questions from a man in the third row who had written his outlet's name on a lanyard with a Sharpie.
The three reinstated organizations were offered what officials called "equivalent access," defined in a memo as folding chairs positioned "adjacent to, but not within, the credentialed zone," a region near the back wall previously used to store a broken projector screen and one box of branded bottled water from a 2019 summit nobody remembers.
The AP declined the folding chairs. Reuters said it was reviewing its options. The third outlet released a statement that began with the words "once again" and then continued for four paragraphs before ending with the phrase "as a matter of principle."
Legal scholars noted the case moved with unusual speed, reaching an injunction in under two weeks. First Amendment attorney Claudia Marsh, who has handled seventeen similar disputes since January, said she had not seen a case proceed this efficiently since a 2017 incident involving a different briefing room, a different administration, and a reporter who had also, technically, been banned for a different reason.
"The speed is notable," Marsh said. "Normally a case like this takes months. Here, the administration lost before they had fully decided what they were banning people for."
Furth filed his own emergency motion Thursday afternoon to have his Substack formally recognized as a protected press entity under the same ruling that reinstated the three outlets. The motion cited the First Amendment, the spirit of a free press, and a post he wrote in March that got four thousand views because a congressman accidentally shared it thinking it was something else.
The judge has not yet responded.
Dale is still in the seat.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/cnn-politico-msnow-still-not-allowed-back-in/