New York Times, Pentagon Return to Court Monday Over Press Restrictions

A federal judge ordered the New York Times and the Defense Department to return to a Washington D.C. courtroom on Monday for a hearing on the paper’s motion to compel the Pentagon to comply with last week’s ruling that its press policy is unconstitutional. 

The Pentagon said in court papers Friday that it is complying with last week’s order, and accused the Times of mischaracterizing its revised press policy. The arguments scheduled for Monday are the latest in a months-long legal battle over press access to the Pentagon.

The Times — one of dozens of outlets to reject the Pentagon’s press restrictions enacted last October and give up its credentials — sued the Defense Department and multiple plaintiffs, including Secretary Pete Hegseth, in December.

Senior Judge Paul Friedman ruled on March 20 that the department’s policy violated the First and Fifth Amendments, and ordered that Pentagon officials restore the credentials for Times reporters, who were set to return to the building on Monday. 

On Monday evening, the Defense Department issued new restrictions for journalists, including closing Correspondents’ Corridor, a workspace long used by reporters, along with other limits on access.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said there will be a “new and improved press workspace” located in an annex elsewhere on Pentagon grounds, but provided no timetable as to when it would be available.

The Times filed a motion Tuesday to compel compliance, arguing that Pentagon officials “are contemptuously defying” Friday’s ruling “both in letter and spirit in a newly released ‘interim’ Policy.”

“For the first time in history, the Interim Policy bars reporters with press passes from entering the building without an escort, sets up unprecedented rules governing when a reporter can offer anonymity to a source, and leaves in place provisions that this Court’s Order struck,” Times attorneys wrote. The new interim policy, they added, “is an attempted end-run around this Court’s ruling.”

A Times spokesperson said that “instead of increasing the free press’ right to report on behalf of the public as ordered, the new policy instead imposes even tighter restrictions.” 

In an amicus brief filed Wednesday, the Pentagon Press Association (PPA) said that the Defense Department “has acted to preserve the unconstitutional restrictions vacated by this Court and, indeed, imposed even more severe restrictions designed to thwart independent newsgathering and reporting.”

The PPA called the new restrictions “mendacious” and questioned the Pentagon’s rationale that the policy is necessary for security, noting that the department can still conduct background screenings on journalists, as has long been the practice. The group also noted that “thousands of other individuals, including food service workers, concession employees, hall-roaming baristas, and others, travel around the building’s unsecured areas every day, entirely unescorted.”

Restricting journalists’ “ability to travel unescorted in these same unsecured areas is not a security necessity,” the PPA said. “It is a retaliatory measure to further punish journalists for publishing news reports the Department’s leadership considers inappropriate.”

In Friday’s filing, the Pentagon defended its new policy and argued it complies with the March 20 ruling.

“The Department agrees that journalists should not be prohibited from asking questions at press conferences, that receipt and publication of unsolicited information should be protected and that routine newsgathering should not be penalized,” the Pentagon’s attorneys wrote. “The Department never intended otherwise — and the Revised Policy makes this explicit, with safe harbors that protect every form of routine newsgathering that the Court identified.”

The judge’s March 20 ruling only applied to the New York Times, though other news outlets that rejected the policy last fall and surrendered credentials, such as The Associated Press and Reuters, had sought the reinstatement of their press badges following the decision.

Numerous outlets, ranging from CNN to Fox News to the Washington Post, objected to the Pentagon’s policy last fall. The departure of mainstream news outlets was stunning given that the press corps has worked inside the Pentagon since the 1940s. The Pentagon later welcomed conservative outlets and influencers who agreed to the new policy.

Over the past month, Secretary Pete Hegseth has held several Iran-focused press conferences, which included members of the new press corps, as well as mainstream news reporters. Hegseth has taken the opportunity during these conferences to attack the news media, accusing the press of wanting President Donald Trump to lose.

But, as Washington Post reporter Dan Lamothe noted Friday on X, “This marks the first full week since the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began that the Pentagon has done *zero* press conferences.”

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