Federal Judge Rejects Pentagon’s New Press Policy — Trashes Hegseth’s Efforts to ‘Dictate’ Media Coverage

AP/Mark Schiefelbein

A federal judge blocked the Pentagon’s latest press policy on Thursday in a blistering ruling that called out Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for attempting to “dictate the information received by the American people.”

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman was blunt in his criticism of the Pentagon’s new restrictions on the press, calling out the department for ignoring his previous March ruling finding that elements of the previous media policy were unconstitutional.

“The Department cannot simply reinstate an unlawful policy under the guise of taking ‘new’ action and expect the court to look the other way,” wrote Friedman, later adding, “Nor can the Department take steps to circumvent the Court’s injunction and expect the Court to turn a blind eye.”

Friedman’s decision marked yet another win for The Times after the outlet sued the department over its initial policy, which ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Media, and NBC News refused to agree to.

The Pentagon created a revised policy after Friedman’s March ruling on The Times’ lawsuit, though the outlet claimed that the department’s new policy did not comply with the judge’s decision. Freemen’s eventual agreement with The Times’ outlook was foreshadowed in his remarks during arguments, when he seemed deeply skeptical of the Pentagon’s changes.

“Is this a Catch-22? Is this Kafka?” he asked in late March. “What’s going on here?”

The judge directly noted some of the Pentagon’s new press restrictions in his Thursday ruling, calling the department’s removal of press from the building after the initial ruling “transparent attempts to negate the impact” of the decision.

“In light of all this, the Court has no choice but to conclude that the Department’s abrupt closure of the Correspondents’ Corridor and its ban on credentialed journalists traveling unescorted through the Pentagon are not security measures or efforts to make good on prior commitments but rather transparent attempts to negate the impact of this Court’s Order,” he wrote.

The Pentagon’s justification for removing the press as a security measure, Friedman bluntly shot down.

“In short, this is nonsense,” he wrote.

The judge also directly criticized Hegseth at the close of the ruling, deriding his policy as an affront to the Constitution.

“The Court cannot conclude this Opinion without noting once again what this case is really about: the attempt by the Secretary of Defense to dictate the information received by the American people, to control the message so that the public hears and sees only what the Secretary and the Trump Administration want them to hear and see,” he wrote. “The Constitution demands better. The American public demands better, too.”

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