Pentagon violating court order on press access, US judge says

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has failed to comply with a court order to restore press access, a federal judge ruled on Thursday (Apr 9), rejecting new restrictions put in place by the department after its prior rules were deemed unconstitutional.

As part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by the New York Times, the court ruled in March that the Pentagon’s changes last year to press access – which saw credentials from a host of prominent outlets stripped – violated the constitution.

However, the Pentagon responded to the March ruling with even tighter restrictions.

“The very next business day, the Department announced that it was immediately closing the ‘Correspondents’ Corridor’ – the area in the Pentagon from which journalists had worked for years,” Judge Paul Friedman noted in his Thursday order.

The Pentagon also moved to fully bar journalists from entering the sprawling military headquarters without an official escort. Instead, a new workspace would be provided “in an annex facility”.

For decades, vetted journalists from prominent outlets have been granted badges that allow them to freely move through parts of the Pentagon to engage with officials and public affairs staff.

The Defense Department has cited security risks for the tighter restrictions.

Friedman wrote on Thursday that the tightened restrictions, “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”.

“The Department disagrees with the Court’s ruling and intends to appeal,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote Thursday on X.

“The Department has at all times complied with the Court’s Order – it reinstated the PFACs of every journalist identified in the Order and issued a materially revised policy that addressed every concern the Court identified in its Mar 20 Opinion.”