US District Judge Paul Friedman issued a preliminary injunction June 30 blocking the Pentagon from requiring journalists to have an official escort while reporting inside the building, ruling that The New York Times is likely to succeed on its First Amendment challenge to the policy.
The ruling marks the third time litigation over Pentagon press access has gone against the department, and the second time Friedman specifically has blocked a version of the escort requirement. Friedman, a Clinton appointee, found that the policy likely violated the First Amendment in part because it was retaliatory, writing that requiring an escort would chill reporters’ ability to hold organic conversations with sources and would force them to spend part of each day waiting for department officials to grant building access.
The dispute traces back to October 2025, when the Pentagon adopted a policy threatening to pull press credentials from journalists who published unapproved information without pre-clearance. The Times sued in December, and Friedman ruled the policy unconstitutional in March.
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The Defense Department responded with a revised interim policy that added the escort requirement; Friedman blocked that too, but an appeals panel found it fell outside the scope of his original order, prompting the Times to file a separate lawsuit challenging the escort rule directly. Tuesday’s injunction resolves that second suit.
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In his opinion, Friedman leaned on public remarks by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the media, including a comparison of the “legacy Trump-hating press” to biblical Pharisees, as evidence that the policy’s true purpose was retaliation rather than security.
He also rejected the department’s security rationale as “facially dubious,” questioning why the timing of a journalist’s question would increase the odds of a Pentagon official disclosing classified information, and pointed out that other civilians who regularly work inside the building, from food-service staff to contractors, already do so without an escort.
Friedman closed the opinion by invoking the country’s founding principles on press freedom, writing that the country’s 250th anniversary this week made abandoning that principle especially unacceptable.
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Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said the department will appeal, posting on X that removing the escort requirement would allow journalists to resume movement patterns he blamed for past unauthorized disclosures of military plans and intelligence.
