WASHINGTON — A federal judge appeared skeptical of the Trump administration’s argument that the president had valid national security grounds for banning three news outlets from the White House, but didn’t immediately rule on whether to reinstate their access.

U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, at a hearing Wednesday in Washington, also expressed doubts that President Donald Trump had provided sufficient notice to CNN, MS NOW and Politico before revoking press credentials for their journalists last week. They sued Monday to challenge the ban.

Kelly said he would rule “soon” on a request from the news organizations for a temporary order that would restore their access to the White House while their lawsuit proceeds.

During the hearing, Justice Department lawyer Michael K. Velchik said “access to the White House is a privilege, not a right,” and that the president sent notice of his decision to the outlets and provided them with an opportunity to contest the decision.

The White House Press Office sent the publications letters late Tuesday, four days after the president announced the ban on social media and three days after the organizations say their reporters were turned away from the White House.

“I don’t know how a letter that they got after the pass was revoked could provide them with the kind of standards that they’d have to conform their conduct to,” Kelly said at the hearing.

In the letters, the White House Press Office informed the outlets that their credentials were revoked for “trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues, and publishing sensitive or classified information.”

Theodore Boutrous, an attorney for the outlets, said the ban amounted to “blatant viewpoint and content discrimination” and that citing national security concerns is not appropriate. Boutrous said Trump’s original social media post didn’t mention national security concerns.

“The Secret Service looks at one thing only: physical threats to the President of the United States,” Boutrous said. That means it is possible for a reporter to be seen as a threat, but “not the reporter’s reporting,” which is what the government is arguing, he said.

The president is free to criticize the press and their coverage of his administration as much as he wants, Boutrous said. “What he can’t do is use the power of the government to punish them for their expression,” he said.

Trump announced the ban in a social media post on Friday, and journalists from the news organizations were denied access to the White House grounds the following day. The Trump administration has a history of seeking to restrict press access to events and spaces that are in the public interest.

All three news outlets sued Trump over the ban on Monday, calling it a blatant violation of the First Amendment. The companies said in the suit that the ban was instituted immediately, without proper notice or the opportunity for the outlets to contest the decision — a violation of their right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.

Kelly, a Trump appointee, presided over a similar case in 2018, when CNN filed suit after the White House revoked the credentials of correspondent Jim Acosta. Kelly ordered his access restored.

Trump had initially referred to the new policy as “the ban on the free press,” and suggested that he may target other news outlets. He appeared to walk back that description on Monday, posting on social media that the White House is “not instituting an assault on the Free Press” but rather targeting “FAKE NEWS.”

Dozens of news organizations, including Bloomberg News, Dow Jones and Reuters, signed on to an amicus brief submitted to the court in support of the banned outlets.

The case is Cable News Network v. Trump, 26-cv-3287, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia.

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