The New York Times has filed a second federal lawsuit against the Defense Department, this time accusing it of unlawfully restricting press access inside the Pentagon by forcing reporters to be accompanied by government escorts.
Filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, the complaint argues that the Pentagon’s revised access rules violate the First Amendment by placing excessive barriers on newsgathering and limiting reporters’ ability to do routine work independently inside the military headquarters.
According to the complaint, journalists operating under the policy must “call or email for an appointment, wait for a response, get an escort, ask their question” and then leave, a process the newspaper says severely hampers reporting and transforms Pentagon press credentials into “essentially worthless” access passes.
The lawsuit seeks a court order blocking enforcement of the escort requirement, which the Pentagon adopted earlier this year after a judge struck down key portions of an earlier set of media restrictions.
Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell defended the policy in a statement, saying the rules are “completely lawful and narrowly designed to protect national security information from unlawful criminal disclosure.” He accused The Times of trying to gain access to classified material through the lawsuit.
The case marks the latest development in an ongoing legal dispute between the newspaper and the Pentagon over media access under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Since last year, the department has tightened rules governing journalists covering the Pentagon, including policies allowing officials to revoke press credentials from reporters deemed security concerns.
The Times previously challenged those measures in court, arguing they violated both First and Fifth Amendment protections. In March, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled against major parts of the Pentagon’s earlier restrictions. The department later issued what it described as an interim policy that maintained the escort mandate and shuttered longtime workspaces used by reporters inside the building.
Friedman later invalidated central portions of the revised rules as well. However, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit temporarily allowed the escort requirement to remain in effect while the Pentagon appeals the lower court rulings.
In the new complaint, The Times describes the revised access policy as “patently retaliatory” and says the escort mandate interferes with reporters’ ability to cultivate sources, move freely within approved areas and gather news in a timely manner.
