Judge blocks Pentagon’s latest bid to limit press access

By Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge tore into the Department of Defense on Thursday for attempting an end-run around his decision voiding parts of a restrictive press policy rolled out by Secretary Pete Hegseth last year, saying the Pentagon had flouted his ruling when it quickly implemented a tighter policy.

“The Department cannot simply reinstate an unlawful policy under the guise of taking ‘new’ action and expect the court to look the other way,” US District Judge Paul Friedman wrote in a stinging ruling in a case brought by The New York Times.

Under the new policy, Friedman said, the Pentagon “has invoked slightly different language” but is still violating the constitutional rights of national security reporters who have long been granted access to the department’s sprawling headquarters in Northern Virginia.

“The curtailment of First Amendment rights is dangerous at any time, and even more so in a time of war,” the appointee of former President Bill Clinton wrote. “Suppression of political speech is the mark of an autocracy, not a democracy — as the Framers recognized when they drafted the First Amendment.”

The judge said officials at the Pentagon cannot enforce the new policy against several Pentagon reporters at the newspaper and ordered it to take steps to restore their physical access to the building.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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