White House backs down and lets CNN's Acosta keep pass

The White House will no longer seek to revoke the press accreditation of reporter Jim Acosta, CNN says.

CNN's Jim Acosta has been told in a letter the White House intends to deny him access again. (AAP)

The White House has fully restored CNN correspondent Jim Acosta's hard pass, ending high stakes litigation that could have determined the extent to which the president controls access by the media.

"Having received a formal reply from your counsel to our letter of November 16, we have made a final determination in this process: your hard pass is restored," the White House said in a letter to Acosta on Monday afternoon and published by CNN.

"Should you refuse to follow these rules in the future, we will take action in accordance with the rules set forth above. The President is aware of this decision and concurs."

President Donald Trump clashed with CNN journalist Jim Acosta during a news conference last week. Source: AAP

"Today the @WhiteHouse fully restored @Acosta's press pass," the CNN public relations account wrote.

"As a result, our lawsuit is no longer necessary. We look forward to continuing to cover the White House."

If the White House were to seek again to pull the hard pass, it would have required the administration to first ask a federal judge to lift a court order.

CNN won a temporary restraining order on Friday to at temporarily restore Acosta's pass.

US District Judge Timothy Kelly on Friday ruled that the White House failed to follow due process when they revoked his credentials hours after a contentious press conference on November 7.

Over the weekend, it looked as if the White House would attempt to revoke Acosta's pass again by proving to the judge that they had followed due process.

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Deputy Chief of Staff Bill Shine sent a letter to Acosta on Friday evening informing him that they had preliminarily decided to revoke his credential, with a final decision to be made on Monday.

CNN's legal team objected to the move, calling it retroactive and based on non-existent written standards of conduct. They sought an emergency court hearing.

The Trump administration also outlined a written set of guidelines for reporters at press conferences:

(I) A journalist called upon to ask a question will ask a single question and then will yield the floor to other journalists;

(2) At the discretion of the President or other White House official taking questions, a follow-up question or questions may be permitted; and where a follow up has been allowed and asked, the questioner will then yield the floor;

(3) "Yielding the floor" includes, when applicable, physically surrendering the microphone to White House staff for use by the next questioner;

(4) Failure to abide by any of rules (1)-(3) may result in suspension or revocation of the journalist's hard pass.

The Trump administration claimed that Acosta disrupted the press conference when he refused to stop trying to ask a follow-up question to the president.

Trump called him "rude," and Acosta initially declined to hand his microphone over to a White House intern when she attempted to grab it from him.