An appeals court just gave War Secretary Pete Hegseth the victory on his new press policy that requires reporters to be escorted when moving through the Pentagon, for now, overruling a lower court which blocked the policy in favor of the New York Times.
Here’s the news via the AP:
The Defense Department can require journalists to be escorted on Pentagon grounds while the Trump administration appeals a judge’s decision to block its enforcement of a press access policy challenged by The New York Times, an appeals court ruled Monday.
The ruling by a divided three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit isn’t the final decision in the newspaper’s lawsuit over a new Pentagon press credential policy. But the panel’s majority opinion said the administration is likely to succeed in showing that the policy’s escort requirement is legally valid.
The panel granted the government’s request to suspend an April 9 decision by U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, who ruled that the Defense Department was violating his earlier order to restore access to the Pentagon for reporters.
Circuit Judges Justin Walker, J. Michelle Childs and Bradley Garcia heard the case, with Childs dissenting from the 2-1 majority.
“Reporters can hardly verify sources, gather information, or speak candidly with Department personnel with an escort looming over their shoulders,” Childs wrote.
Friedman found that the Pentagon’s new credential policy violated journalists’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process. He said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s team had tried to evade his March 20 ruling by putting in new rules that expel all reporters from the building unless guided by escorts.
Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell said it welcomes the panel’s decision and looks forward to arguing the merits of its “full case” before the same panel. In a statement posted on social media, Parnell said unescorted access to the Pentagon has led to the “regular unauthorized disclosure of sensitive and classified national defense information.”
The surprising thing about this ruling is that two of the judges on the panel were Biden appointees and the other a Trump appointee. Meaning, Biden appointee Judge Bradley Garcia agreed with Trump appointee Judge Justin Walker, that the War Department would succeed in their case. Childs, the other Biden appointee, is the sole dissenter.
We’ll see how the case plays out in the end, but for now Hegseth is winning.