New York Times sues Pentagon a second time over press access policy

The New York Times sued the Defense Department on Monday for the second time in five months, arguing a requirement that journalists be escorted while on Pentagon grounds violates the First Amendment.

The lawsuit casts the escort policy as part of "a series of escalating steps designed to stop unfavorable coverage" and "dramatically curtails longstanding press access to the Pentagon," in violation of the First and Fifth amendments.

The policy is "an unconstitutional attempt by the Pentagon to prevent independent reporting on military affairs," a Times spokesman, Charlie Stadtlander, said in an email to The Associated Press. "As we have said before: Americans deserve visibility into how their government is being run, and the actions the military is taking in their name and with their tax dollars."

On X, Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell called the Times' latest lawsuit "nothing more than an attempt to remove the barriers to them getting their hands on classified information."

The Times lawsuit is another salvo in the escalating tensions between the U.S. media and the second Trump administration, which has played out both in the public arena and at times in the courts.

The paper filed Monday's lawsuit after first suing the Pentagon in December over a separate set of rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last fall.

The older policy required reporters to sign onto a host of restrictions in order to maintain daily access to the Pentagon, including one that suggested reporters who "solicit" sensitive information from military personnel could be deemed a security risk and expelled from the building. Many news outlets — including CBS News, ABC News, NBC News, CNN and Fox News — declined to sign the policy and were forced to vacate the Pentagon.

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman struck down parts of that policy in March, finding they violated the rights of the newspaper and one of its reporters, Julian Barnes.

The Pentagon responded by imposing a new policy that barred reporters from accessing the building altogether unless they are accompanied by a government escort. The judge ruled that the interim policy violated his March order. But the escort policy remained in place when an appeals court stayed part of Friedman's ruling while the government appeals. The appeals process is ongoing.

The new lawsuit, filed by the paper and reporter Barnes in District of Columbia district court, aims to get the courts to directly address the escort rule on constitutional grounds.

In the filing, the paper contends the rule, like other Pentagon media restrictions, has a clear aim — "closing the Pentagon to any journalist or news organization unwilling to report only what Department officials approve."

This, it contends, is "patently unconstitutional."

The Pentagon has denied that it is trying to force journalists to get approval for their stories, and is instead trying to prevent leaks of highly sensitive information.

Parnell, in his X post Monday, asserted that The Times and its journalists "want to roam the halls of the Pentagon freely and without an escort — a privilege that they do not have in any other federal building."

He added: "The Department's policy is completely lawful and narrowly designed to protect national security information from unlawful criminal disclosure."