The New York Times filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon on Monday, accusing the Defense Department of violating the First Amendment by forcing reporters to have an official escort during every visit to the building. The publication filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The legal action is the latest development in a months-long dispute between the newspaper and the military agency over press access. It comes after an earlier lawsuit and a string of court rulings that threw out previous Pentagon restrictions.
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Under a policy the Pentagon adopted in March, journalists must “call or email for an appointment, wait for a response, get an escort, ask their question,” and then leave the building.
The Times argues the requirement imposes unreasonable burdens on reporters and is unconstitutional. The suit makes a direct demand, asking the court to compel the Pentagon to drop the restriction entirely.
October Restrictions And The First Lawsuit
The legal conflict predates the March policy, stretching back to an earlier period when the Pentagon first began tightening its grip on press access inside the building. The Pentagon rolled out a broader set of restrictions in October, giving the agency the power to brand journalists “security risks” and pull their press credentials.
The Times filed its first lawsuit in December, challenging those October measures on First Amendment and Fifth Amendment grounds.
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Judge Friedman’s Rulings
Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of The Times in March, striking down major portions of the October policy.
The Pentagon fired back with an “interim” policy that mandated official escorts for every visit and closed the longstanding journalist workspace inside the building. Judge Friedman later threw out the core of that interim policy too.
The Appeals Court Decision
After Judge Friedman’s second ruling, the Pentagon turned to an appeals court with a request to preserve the escort requirement while it took both decisions through the appeal process.
In April, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled to keep the escort requirement in place during the appeal.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had repeatedly curtailed journalist access within the Pentagon before the litigation reached the appellate level, including by imposing escort rules for certain corridors.
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Pentagon Response
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell pushed back against the lawsuit, describing the filing as an attempt by The Times to get “their hands on classified information.” Parnell added, “The department’s policy is completely lawful and narrowly designed to protect national security information from unlawful criminal disclosure.“
The Times described the interim policy as “patently retaliatory” in its complaint, and argued the escort requirement rendered Times journalists’ press passes “essentially worthless.”
The New York Times made its intentions clear, stating that the new suit aims to challenge the interim policy “on its own terms” and presenting it as a standalone constitutional challenge with no attachment to the December litigation.
