White House Correspondents Honor Lehner for Exceptional Service

WASHINGTON — George Lehner, longtime counsel to the White House Correspondents’ Association, was awarded the organization’s President’s Award for Exceptional Service this week, ahead of his retirement from its board in July.

Lehner, a tireless champion of the First Amendment and the White House press, has been the association’s counsel for the last 18 years, doing all his work pro bono.

“It was a privilege to counsel and work with the WHCA board members who every day advocate for more and more effective access at the White House,” Lehner said in an email to The Well News Friday morning.

In his nearly two decades of service, Lehner has been a critical adviser to the association on issues ranging from news coverage during periods of great challenges at the White House, membership during a time of explosive growth and even on questions of agreements with the entertainer for the annual correspondents’ dinner.

“George Lehner has provided wise counsel and deep insight that helped our board be more effective in service to the press corps and the association,” said Kelly O’Donnell, president of the association, in announcing the award.

“I am grateful for his steady influence and generous spirit. His knowledge and passion for a free press and the First Amendment have made a huge impact. Eighteen years of volunteer service to the WHCA is an extraordinary gift that has made many iterations of our board stronger and better,” she said.

Among Lehner’s many contributions to the association over the years are his filing of amicus briefs in both federal courts regarding the denial of access to White House journalists; being a key adviser in opposition to the White House exclusion of press photographers and video journalists in favor of White House-managed photos and videos; serving as an advisor and coordinator on numerous updates to the bylaws that govern the association; offering his advice on the financing of recent renovations of the press workspace and briefing room at the White House; and defending the association in court over claims of discrimination in the WHCA annual dinner.

Perhaps Lehner’s most high profile act in recent years was his going toe-to-toe with the Trump administration when it pulled the credentials of CNN’s Jim Acosta for allegedly refusing to surrender a microphone to a staffer during a press conference.

CNN and Acosta sued Trump and many members of his staff, claiming the suspension of his credentials violated the reporter’s First and Fifth Amendment rights. 

The administration pushed back, arguing it had “absolute” discretion over which journalists receive interviews and “on-demand” access to the White House.

In the amicus brief he penned on behalf of the White House Correspondents’ Association, Lehner observed: “Under the president’s view of the law, if he does not like the content of an article that a journalist writes about him, he can deny that journalist access to the White House.”

“In fact, according to the president, if he alone considers a journalist a ‘bad’ or a ‘rude’ person, he can deny that journalist access to the White House. And he can do so without providing that journalist with any process whatsoever,” the attorney continued.

Lehner went on to argue that while Trump could ban a journalist from his residence at Trump Tower, he doesn’t have the power to choose which members of the press have access to him at the White House. 

To do so would be violating Acosta’s First Amendment rights and contradicting clear case law, absent a “compelling government interest,” he wrote.

In essence, Lehner said, allowing such a policy to stand would chill the White House press corps by forcing the journalists that comprise it to consider whether to ask questions that might annoy the president and put their press passes at risk.

“Forcing those who cover the president to make such an untenable choice is not something that the First Amendment can tolerate,” Lehner wrote. “Nor can the First Amendment — nor our democracy as a whole, for that matter — tolerate yielding to the president the power to effectively choose who does and who does not cover him.”

On Friday, Lehner told The Well News that no single event over the past 18 years stands out in his mind, “in part, because so much of the work that the board does is behind the scenes.

“The daily press briefings, the on camera stuff, the stories that are actually printed are the tip of the iceberg,” he continued. 

“The one thing that I have tried to keep top of mind for the board is that while the work the WHCA does supports the journalists who cover the White House, is actually for the benefit of all of us so that we are better informed citizens,” Lehner said.

The award was approved unanimously by the WHCA Board.

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