White House Press TRO, Third-Country Removals Appeal, Ohio Voter Law & ChatGPT Review Suit: Week of Sep 24

Better Call Claude Briefing — Week of Sep 24, 2026

A federal judge ordered the White House to restore press credentials for three outlets, the Justice Department said it will ask the Supreme Court to revive third-country deportation flights, Ohio’s proof-of-citizenship motor-voter rule is back in force for the midterms, ChatGPT users allege undisclosed human review of their chats, and Thomson Reuters keeps wiring HighQ into the big AI assistants. General news roundup only — not legal advice.

Judge Kelly TRO restores CNN, MS NOW, and Politico White House access

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly early Thursday issued a 14-day temporary restraining order directing the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” hard-pass access for CNN, MS NOW, and Politico after President Trump announced a ban late last week. Kelly, a Trump nominee who restored a CNN reporter’s pass in a similar 2018 dispute, found the outlets were likely to show their credentials were revoked without due process and that the “objectionable reporting” standard in White House letters was “so vague it hardly does the trick.” He also rejected the late-raised national-security rationale, writing that nothing in the record suggested the revocations were motivated by security rather than coverage Trump called negative. Hours after the order, reporters said Secret Service still barred them from the grounds, and the outlets asked for an immediate hearing on noncompliance. The network press pool has meanwhile suspended coverage of Trump pool events until CNN is back in the rotation.

Sources: PBS / AP, NBC News, ABC News

DOJ will seek SCOTUS relief after First Circuit blocks third-country removals

Attorney General Todd Blanche said Thursday the administration will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to lift a First Circuit order that put into effect a ruling deeming DHS’s third-country removal policy unlawful. Immigrant-rights lawyers obtained the overnight order after learning DHS planned a Thursday flight from Virginia to Burundi, Rwanda, and the Central African Republic. On Friday the First Circuit largely upheld District Judge Brian Murphy’s February decision that immigration law requires a meaningful chance to raise persecution or torture fears before removal to a third country; DHS argued that a March pause of Murphy’s order still controlled until the circuit dissolved it late Wednesday. The Supreme Court has twice before lifted injunctions in this same case and cleared a South Sudan removal. Plaintiff counsel Trina Realmuto of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance said the new order “makes crystal clear no flights or buses should carry out third-country removals.”

Sources: Reuters

Sixth Circuit reinstates Ohio proof-of-citizenship motor-voter law for midterms

A 2–1 Sixth Circuit panel late Wednesday stayed District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr.’s August injunction that had blocked Ohio House Bill 54, which requires documentary proof of citizenship when people register to vote at motor-vehicle offices. Trump appointees Judges John Nalbandian and Whitney Hermandorfer said challengers Red Wine & Blue and the Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans likely lacked standing, that Oliver’s order came too close to the election under Purcell principles, and that the stay factors favored the state ahead of Ohio’s October 5 registration deadline. Judge Kevin Ritz dissented, writing that the National Voter Registration Act is meant to facilitate registration and that the injunction did not threaten election integrity. Oliver had held that a written citizenship attestation was enough for officials to assess eligibility; the stay lets the 2025 rule operate while the appeal continues, in a competitive Senate cycle where registration rules are tightly contested.

Sources: Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Democracy Docket

Class action says OpenAI’s “Project Lily” sent ChatGPT chats to human reviewers

Two California consumers filed Vredenburgh v. OpenAI OpCo, LLC, No. 3:26-cv-10527, in the Northern District of California on September 16, alleging OpenAI routed real ChatGPT conversations to outside contractors who summarize prompts and score model answers under an internal program the complaint calls Project Lily — without clear disclosure in the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, or model-training pages. The suit, which tracks September 14 reporting by 404 Media, proposes a nationwide class of U.S. ChatGPT users (carving out Enterprise, Business, Team, Edu, and API customers) and pleads California UCL, CLRA, False Advertising, CCPA, constitutional privacy, concealment, intrusion, and unjust enrichment claims. OpenAI was served September 21; a response is due October 13 before Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse. Plaintiffs seek damages, injunctive relief including opt-in consent before outside review, and defaults that keep model-improvement sharing off unless users opt in. Allegations are unproven; no class has been certified.

Sources: Open Class Actions, Top Class Actions, Almeida Law Group (complaint overview)

Thomson Reuters wires HighQ into ChatGPT Enterprise; CoCounsel Legal in preview

Thomson Reuters said HighQ matter context is now available inside ChatGPT Enterprise through a Model Context Protocol connection, and it is previewing a CoCounsel Legal experience that would let lawyers reach CoCounsel tools from the same chat surface. CTO Joel Hron framed the move as interoperability with security and audit attached: “Open cannot mean uncontrolled.” The OpenAI tie-up completes a three-platform pattern — Claude to CoCounsel in May, HighQ to Gemini Enterprise for Legal in August, and now HighQ (live) plus CoCounsel (preview) on ChatGPT — in the same week OpenAI launched Astra for Law. Firms still need to confirm whether HighQ permissions, matter walls, read-only behavior, and audit logs travel into ChatGPT the same way Thomson Reuters described for Gemini before turning the connector on.

Sources: Legal Desire, Legal IT Insider (Astra for Law)

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This Briefing is general news for Better Call Claude readers. It is not legal advice, and nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship. Check primary sources and talk to a licensed lawyer about your situation.