US Judge Hears New Bid to Halt Pentagon Media Escort Policy (1)

A Washington federal judge weighed whether to temporarily block a Pentagon policy mandating staff escorts for credentialed reporters.

Senior US District Judge Paul Friedman questioned both sides closely on Friday at a hearing on a motion by the New York Times to halt the practice.

The news outlet asserts in its latest lawsuit over press restrictions that Defense Department policy is retaliatory and violates the First Amendment. The Pentagon says it’s necessary to protect national security.

Friedman gave the department until June 17 to respond to certain evidence the Times introduced in its briefing, and didn’t indicate when he might rule on the matter.

The Times sued in May challenging the escort mandate. But the Pentagon argued that the Times can’t meet the bar necessary for the court to stop it because the policy doesn’t keep journalists out of the building, impose delays on reporting, or interfere with news gathering.

It was the outlet’s second suit against the Pentagon over its policies limiting credentialed reporters’ access.

It also comes less than a month after a federal appeals court allowed the administration to continue enforcing the escort mandate, after Friedman found it violated an earlier ruling.

The divided three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit explained that the escort mandate was likely a new policy that wasn’t covered by Friedman’s decision.

According to the Pentagon, the restrictions for journalists were intended to prevent reporting on classified national security information and unclassified, controlled information.

Friedman during the hearing questioned whether there was a clear connection between the presence of journalists and such information being reported.

The Pentagon said the frequency of outreach from journalists regarding classified or controlled information had dropped as a result of the initial policy changes, and that the law didn’t require “the horse having left the barn to close the gate.”

Gibson Dunn partner Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., who represents the Times, told the court that justification was “pretextual,” and pointed to the administration’s various attacks on the press, including recent comments by President Donald Trump.

The case is: The New York Times Co. v. Department of Defense, Dist. Ct. U.S. D.C., No. 1:26-cv-01690, hearing, 6/12/26.