WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge agreed Friday to block the Trump administration from enforcing a policy restricting journalists’ access to the Pentagon, agreeing with the New York Times that key parts of the new rules are illegal.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., sided with the newspaper, ruling that the Pentagon’s policy unlawfully restricted the press credentials of reporters who walked out of the building without agreeing to the new rules.
The Times sued the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in December, claiming the credentialing policy violated journalists’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process.
The current Pentagon press corps consists largely of conservative media outlets that agree with the policy. Journalists from media outlets that refused to agree to the new rules, including those from The Associated Press, continued to report on the military.
Friedman, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the policy “fails to fairly inform what routine, lawful journalistic conduct would result in the denial, suspension or revocation of a Pentagon reporter’s credentials.” He ruled it violated First and Fifth Amendment rights to free speech and due process.
“The people who drafted the First Amendment believed that national security required a free press and an informed people, and that government suppression of political speech jeopardized that security. This principle has safeguarded national security for nearly 250 years. It must not be abandoned now,” the judge wrote.
Theodore Boutrous, a lawyer for The New York Times, said in a statement that the court’s decision was “a powerful rejection of the Pentagon’s efforts to impede the free press and the reporting of vital information to the American people during wartime.”
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
It argued the policy imposed “common sense” rules to protect the military from leaks of national security information.
“The goal of this process is to prevent widespread access to U.S. military headquarters by those who pose a security risk,” government lawyers wrote.
Times lawyers claim the policy is intended to suppress media coverage that is unfavorable to President Donald Trump’s administration.
“The First Amendment expressly prohibits the government from granting itself unlimited power to restrict speech because the existence of such arbitrary power could lead to self-censorship,” they wrote.
The judge said he recognized that “national security must be protected, the safety of our military must be protected, and the war plan must be protected.”
“But especially in light of the country’s recent invasion of Venezuela and the ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public has access to information about what the government is doing from a variety of perspectives so that the public can support government policies (if they want to support it); protest (if they want to protest); and decide who they will vote for in the next election based on full, complete, and open information,” Friedman wrote.
Friedman said there was “indisputable evidence” that the policy was designed to weed out “disfavored journalists” and replace them with those who “join and are willing to serve the government,” a clear example of illegal viewpoint discrimination.
“In sum, on its face, this policy makes any news gathering and reporting without State Department approval a potential basis for denying, suspending, or revoking journalists’ (credentials),” he wrote. “It doesn’t teach journalists how to do their jobs without losing their seniority.”
The Pentagon has asked the judge to suspend the ruling for a week to allow for an appeal. Friedman refused.
A judge ordered the Pentagon to reinstate the press credentials of seven New York Times reporters. But he said his decision to withdraw the challenged policy provisions applied to “all regulated parties”. Friedman gave the Pentagon one week to submit a written report on its compliance with the order.
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Associated Press writer Konstantin Tolopin contributed to this report.