Timothy Kelly

Overview

Twice now, the Trump White House has revoked journalists’ press credentials — and twice, the judge who ordered them restored was a judge Donald Trump himself appointed. On September 24, 2026, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly granted CNN, MS NOW, and Politico a 14-day temporary restraining order, directing the administration to “immediately return, reinstate and restore” their reporters’ hard-pass credentials after finding the revocations lacked “constitutionally adequate due process” (PEOPLE; The Economic Times). It was nearly a replay of November 16, 2018, when Kelly — then barely a year on the bench — ordered the same White House to restore CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press pass on the same legal ground (NPR). Trump saw the second ruling coming: days beforehand he said he “probably will” let the outlets back in because he expected Kelly to rule against him, and after the case landed with Kelly he wrote on Truth Social that the outlets had “drawn a great judge for them, a man who ruled in favor of Jim Acosta,” adding, “The judge’s name is Tim Kelly, and he was sadly appointed by Trump” (PEOPLE; The Economic Times).

Kelly has served on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia since September 2017, after a decade as a federal prosecutor and four years as a top Senate aide on national security and crime (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit).

The September 2026 credentials ruling

The dispute began on September 18, 2026, when Trump announced on social media that he was “banning” CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House “effective immediately,” accusing them of reporting “FICTION and LIES” (The Economic Times). Reporters from the three outlets were subsequently denied entry and had their hard-pass credentials deactivated or confiscated (The Economic Times). Three days later, on September 21, the outlets sued “to protect our First Amendment rights,” asking the court for a temporary restraining order that would restore their credentials while the case continued (PEOPLE).

Ruling early on Thursday, September 24, Kelly found the outlets were likely to succeed on at least some of their claims — particularly the argument that their credentials had been revoked without “constitutionally adequate due process” (The Economic Times). The administration did not dispute that the outlets “did not receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before their hard passes were revoked,” and Kelly questioned whether the government’s national-security justification had any factual support (The Economic Times). In his written opinion he drew a direct contrast with the president’s own words: “Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House — instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting” (PEOPLE).

The order directed the administration to “immediately return, reinstate and restore” the journalists’ hard passes and runs for 14 days while the underlying lawsuit proceeds; it is an interim measure, not a final judgment on the First Amendment claims (PEOPLE; The Economic Times). In court, the administration’s lawyers had argued the outlets were given a chance to contest the decision through letters sent after the ban took effect — letters that cited reporting the White House said threatened national security, including CNN’s reporting on plans for the president’s White House ballroom (PEOPLE).

The ruling played out against a noisy backdrop. On September 21, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC joined CNN in a statement saying their White House press pool, which distributes live coverage of presidential events to news organizations worldwide, would suspend operations (PEOPLE). At the United Nations General Assembly, Trump lashed out at CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins — “I’m surprised that CNN is here covering me. You shouldn’t be here!” — and was told, “The United Nations allowed us in, sir,” with Collins later noting CNN was credentialed by the UN itself (PEOPLE). Speaking at the General Assembly alongside Britain’s new prime minister, Trump called Kelly “not a particularly fair judge” and described the outlets’ reporting on the Iran war as “dangerous,” while the White House launched a 24/7 channel, Trump TV: The Essentials Station (PEOPLE).

The 2018 Acosta precedent

Kelly had been here before. On November 7, 2018, the White House revoked the hard pass of CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta after a heated post-midterms press conference exchange with Trump; six days later CNN sued, and on November 16 Kelly granted a temporary restraining order restoring the credential (NPR). His reasoning then reads like a first draft of the 2026 opinion: the White House, having granted reporters access for decades, could not take it away without the due process of law the Constitution guarantees, and whatever process had occurred was “shrouded in mystery” — government lawyers could not even say who had made the initial decision to revoke Acosta’s pass (NPR).

Kelly laid out what due process would have required: notify the reporter, give him a chance to challenge the decision, and provide a written justification — none of which happened (NPR). He also rejected the White House’s after-the-fact explanation — that Acosta had laid hands on an intern reaching for the microphone — as “likely untrue” (NPR). “Each day he [Acosta] is deprived … [he] suffers a harm that cannot be remedied in retrospect,” Kelly said, and he suggested that if the White House wanted to strip credentials in the future it would have to adopt neutral standards of behavior whose violation would justify revocation (NPR). He was careful to say he had not determined the First Amendment was violated, grounding the order in a 1977 precedent requiring reasons and an opportunity to respond (NPR).

The ruling drew a joint statement from more than 40 news organizations, including NPR, applauding Kelly’s “careful application of the law to reject the White House’s claim of unbridled authority over journalists’ access to the White House” (NPR). The White House said it would restore Acosta’s pass, and Trump responded by promising written rules for the press corps — “We’re writing up rules and regulations… We have to practice decorum” (NPR). Eight years later, no such neutral framework had prevented the second confrontation.

A decade as a federal prosecutor, then the Senate

Before the bench, Kelly spent ten years as a federal prosecutor. He joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia in 2003 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, handling serious violent crimes, drug trafficking, and white-collar offenses (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia). In 2007 he moved to the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division as a trial attorney, where his prosecution of public corruption cases earned him the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service and the FBI Washington Field Office Service Award (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia).

From 2013 to 2017 he worked on Capitol Hill: as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, as Republican staff director of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, and as Chief Counsel for National Security and Senior Crime Counsel to Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley (Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit; U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia). His earlier career ran through private practice at Arnold & Porter in Washington, where he defended complex product-liability cases; a 1999–2000 stint as the firm’s loaned associate at the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, representing indigent clients in civil matters; and a 2001–2002 clerkship for Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia).

Kelly was born in March 1969 in Glen Cove, New York, and graduated cum laude from Duke University in 1991 before earning his J.D. from Georgetown in 1997, where he was a senior associate editor of the American Criminal Law Review and represented indigent defendants in D.C. Superior Court through Georgetown’s Criminal Justice Clinic (Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit; U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia). Trump nominated him on June 7, 2017, to the D.C. district seat vacated by Judge Rosemary M. Collyer; the Senate confirmed him on September 5, 2017 — by a 94–2 vote, according to the Economic Times — and he received his commission on September 8 (Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit; The Economic Times). He is a member of the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of Court and a former treasurer of the D.C. Bar’s Criminal Law and Individual Rights Section steering committee (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not state the outcome of the underlying First Amendment lawsuit behind the September 2026 TRO — the 14-day order is interim, and no final judgment had been verified as of September 30, 2026. It does not assert the exact day Kelly was born (only March 1969 is verified), his family details, or the current status of the preliminary-injunction proceedings. It reports the White House’s national-security and professionalism justifications for the 2026 ban only as the administration’s stated positions, not as established facts. The two sources differ slightly on the dates of Kelly’s Senate chief-counsel role (2013–2017 per the court’s biography, 2015–2017 per the Historical Society), and the profile presents both without forcing a single answer. PEOPLE’s reference to Britain’s “new prime minister” is reported as that outlet’s account. No claims are made about Kelly’s rulings beyond the two press-access cases and the career record documented above.