After a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from enforcing its ban on CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO journalists entering the White House, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a notice on Wednesday to appeal the ruling.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a preliminary injunction Oct. 13, giving the outlets access while their lawsuit proceeds, saying the news organizations were likely to prevail on their constitutional claims. The ruling extends protections the judge granted through a temporary restraining order on Sept. 24.

President Donald Trump posted on social media on Sept. 18 that he was “proud to announce” he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO “effective immediately.” When reporters from those three news organizations showed up to work the next day, they were denied entry, despite having “hard passes” allowing them to work there.

On Sept. 21, the White House published a statement that said, “The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool.”

Kelly cited Trump’s public comments about the “fake media” being too critical of his administration and purposely writing negative stories to diminish the Republicans.

Kelly wrote, “No one should read this decision as suggesting that President Trump’s complaints are meritless. Still, his comments are more than enough to show a likely causal link between Plaintiffs’ protected First Amendment speech and his revocation of their hard passes.”

The judge added it was not hard to conclude Trump likely banned the media organizations from the White House because he believes that their reporting is generally inaccurate and biased against him.

“For that reason, all told, Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their First Amendment retaliation claim,” Kelly wrote.

The White House disagreed.

“The Fake News has no place demanding a spot in the President’s Oval Office,” the White House said in a statement. “The lies they smear are a disservice to the American public and tear at the very fabric of our Democracy. They’re completely capable of reporting from directly outside.”

Trump’s administration has posted a number of videos of the president criticizing and sparring with members of the news media.

“Hold it, hold it,” Trump said Sept. 29 when a CNN reporter started talking at a press conference. “CNN. Fake news. She’s fake news. The worst.”

On Sept. 22, the president said in a video posted, “I think we have a right to clean out fake news. … But we have a lot of fake news. I think when news is fake and it’s actually dangerous, we have the right to clean it out.”

Trump said it was “very dangerous” for the country when the media makes false statements about the war.

The judge didn’t agree with that argument, adding that he took the matter of national security seriously.

“And strikingly, there is just about no evidence in the record to explain or justify the ‘ban’ from a national security perspective,” Kelly wrote. “For example, there is little to support the notion that these incidents did in fact damage national security or the safety of any public official.”