In public, the Trump administration is on the attack against the media by launching investigations, restricting press access in government buildings and creating websites slamming critical news coverage of the president.

Under the Constitution, the U.S. government cannot discriminate against people on the basis of the views they express; for news outlets, this extends to news coverage.

Federal lawyers say Trump’s motivation includes reasons beyond coverage

The summary judgment hearing represented an opportunity for each side to shape the contours of a trial, should the presiding judge order one. It was also a chance for the opposing legal teams to try to convince the judge he could issue a ruling granting their side victory without one.

That was not as a result of Trump’s executive order, Resar noted.

A skeptical judge

The presiding U.S. district court judge, Randolph D. Moss, seemed skeptical. “You’d be on much firmer ground if the president had simply said, ‘We just want to get out of the news business.”

For more than a half-century, most federal money for public media has been funneled through the non-profit Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has a bipartisan board whose members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. CPB has become a shadow of its formal self, run by a skeleton crew since the pullback of federal funding.

Government deflects judge’s suggestion

The judge also appeared to offer the government a way out for a major part of the case, dangling the prospect that it might enable him to avoid ruling that Trump’s executive order was illegal.

Resar, the U.S. Justice Department attorney representing Trump and the government, said he was not prepared to accept such a resolution. Given the opportunity, he did not contest that the government was arguing Trump does has the power to force the overturning of CPB’s deal. Similarly, the federal lawyer did not challenge the idea that the government was defending Trump’s ability to order the cancellation of an institution’s federal funding because he does not like what it has to say.

Judge Moss is expected to issue a ruling in the case soon.