WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon has flouted a court order blocking it from enforcing a policy limiting news reporters’ access to the Defense Department’s headquarters, a New York Times attorney asserted Monday in urging a federal judge to compel the government's compliance with the 10-day-old order.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman didn't immediately rule from the bench after hearing a second round of arguments from lawyers for the newspaper and the Trump
administration. The Times claims Pentagon officials have implemented a revised press policy that circumvents the judge's March 20 ruling.
Friedman sided with The Times earlier this month in deciding that the Pentagon’s new credential policy violated journalists’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process. He ordered Pentagon officials to reinstate the press credentials of seven Times reporters and stressed that his decision applies to “all regulated parties.”
Times attorney Theodore Boutrous said the Pentagon responded to Friedman's order by imposing a new, revised policy that imposes “radical new restrictions” on journalists.
“They've only made things worse,” Boutrous said.
Government attorney Sarah Welch said the Defense Department's revised policy on media access to the Pentagon includes several “safe harbors” protecting reporters engaging in routine forms of newsgathering. “The department has fully complied in good faith with that (March 20) order,” Welch told the judge.
In a court filing Sunday, Times national security reporter Julian Barnes said Pentagon staff also explained to him and his colleagues last week that their new credentials would give them access a new press area located in the Pentagon library. But the only way for the reporters to access the library is through a corridor or on a shuttle bus that they didn't have permission to use, Barnes noted — prompting a pointed response from Friedman.
“How weird is that?” the judge said. “Is it Catch-22? Is it Kafka? What's going on here?”
In October, reporters from mainstream news outlets walked out of the building rather than agree to the new rules. The Times sued the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in December to challenge the policy.
Times attorneys accused the Pentagon of violating the judge’s March 20 order, “both in letter and spirit,” by issuing a revised “interim” policy that bars credentialed reporters from entering the building without an escort. Plaintiffs’ lawyers say the latest policy also imposes unprecedented rules dictating when reporters can offer anonymity to sources.
“The intent is obvious: The Interim Policy is an attempted end-run around this Court’s ruling,” newspaper attorneys wrote.
Government lawyers said the Pentagon’s revised policy fully complies with the judge’s directives.
“In effect, Plaintiffs ask this Court to expand the Order to prohibit the Department from ever addressing the security of the Pentagon through a press credentialing policy with conditions that may address similar topics or concerns as the enjoined conditions. The Order does not say that, and this Court should not read it to say that,” Justice Department attorneys wrote.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell has said the administration would appeal Friedman’s March 20 decision.
The Pentagon Press Association, which includes Associated Press reporters, said the Pentagon’s interim policy preserves provisions that Friedman deemed to be unconstitutional while also adding new restrictions on credential holders.
“The Interim Policy moves reporters’ workspace to an annex facility outside the Pentagon and prohibits any reporter from moving within the Pentagon itself without an escort, further limiting their ability to actually do journalism in the forum designated specifically for that purpose,” an association attorney wrote.
The current Pentagon press corps is comprised mostly of conservative outlets that agreed to the policy. Journalists from outlets that refused to consent to the new rules, including from the AP, have continued reporting on the military.
Friedman, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said in his order that recent U.S. military operations in Venezuela and Iran highlight the need for public access to information about government activities.
