Acosta keeps pass in WH about-face

Team Trump will not pull CNN reporter Jim Acosta's “hard pass” for the White House — an about-face from the position it took just hours earlier on Monday.

“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.

“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.”

The letter explained new rules for reporters’ conduct at White House news briefings and presidential press conferences, including allowing only “a single question” from each journalist.

Follow-ups will be permitted only “at the discretion of the President or other White House officials.”

Just hours earlier, the White House had warned Acosta that his pass would be yanked once a judge’s temporary restraining order expired — and the network announced that it was seeking an emergency hearing in response.

A federal judge on Friday had ordered Acosta’s press pass be temporarily restored for 14 days.

Before Monday’s about-face by the White House, CNN’s lawyers said the network and its chief White House correspondent “remain hopeful” that the parties “can resolve this dispute without further court intervention.”

The new letter from deputy chief of staff for communications Bill Shine and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders — two of the defendants in CNN’s lawsuit — was an “attempt to provide retroactive due process,” the lawyers said.