New York Times challenges escort requirement in new lawsuit against Defense Department

The New York Times on Monday filed a second lawsuit against the Defense Department, arguing that an interim press policy mandating that reporters be escorted while on Pentagon grounds is unconstitutional.

The escort policy was introduced in March after Senior U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman struck down an earlier set of restrictions introduced by the department, saying it violated the free press and due process rights of the Times and reporter Julian E. Barnes.

Friedman ruled in April that the interim policy violated his court order, but an appeals court panel stayed part of his ruling, allowing the escort requirement to continue while the government appeals the decision.

The complaint names as defendants not only the Defense Department but also Secretary Pete Hegseth, Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell and Timothy Parlatore - Hegseth’s personal attorney, who also serves as a senior adviser and wrote the press policies.

The Times says the interim policy violates its First and Fifth Amendment rights, as well as federal administrative law.

By filing a fresh suit, the Times hopes to challenge the legality of the interim policy, regardless of whether it violates the judge’s prior order.

“The latest filing by the New York Times, while dressed up to look like a constitutional challenge, is nothing more than an attempt to remove the barriers to them getting their hands on classified information,” Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement. “They 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. The Department’s policy is completely lawful and narrowly designed to protect national security information from unlawful criminal disclosure.”

Hegseth began imposing limits on journalists’ movement in spring 2025 - months after he became defense secretary - and has only expanded those restrictions in the year since. In May 2025, the department began requiring a government escort for reporters to move beyond certain corridors - including areas near Hegseth’s and his aides’ offices.

The move elicited stern rebukes from press freedom advocacy groups: The National Press Club said at the time that the restrictions raised “serious concerns about transparency, oversight, and the public’s right to know.”

Hegseth and his aides have consistently claimed the restrictions are necessary to protect national security interests.

Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for the Times, said in a statement that the interim policy was “hastily put into place” and called it “an unconstitutional attempt by the Pentagon to prevent independent reporting on military affairs.”

“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,” he said.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a partner at the law firm representing the Times, said the interim escort requirement is unlawful and harms the ability of Americans to get information about the military.

The policy is “a blatant effort to thwart independent journalism that violates the First Amendment, defies the district court’s earlier injunction, departs from long-standing tradition, and hurts the American people by trying to hide important information from them during wartime,” Boutrous, who works in the Los Angeles office of Gibson Dunn, said in a statement.

The Times first sued the Defense Department in December, challenging a department policy that required journalists to sign an agreement prohibiting them from soliciting any information not authorized for release by the government.

That policy led to a mass walkout in October by journalists covering the Pentagon, including those at the Times and The Washington Post. Most of the hundreds of journalists credentialed to cover the Defense Department turned in their press badges rather than accede to the requirement. Afterward the Pentagon welcomed a new crop of credentialed media, largely from right-wing outlets.

Hegseth has allowed members of the former Pentagon press corps into recent news conferences about the war in Iran, though opportunities for questions have been granted mostly to members of right-wing outlets, who have been seated in the front rows.

The complaint also alleges that the interim policy was a form of retaliation against the Times for winning the first lawsuit.

Attorneys for the Times are also leaning on words from the policy’s architect, Parlatore, who said in a recent interview with a Times reporter that the interim policy “used more words to say the same thing” as the original October policy that Friedman struck down.

The filing also notes that Hegseth has called the Times “unpatriotic” and compared journalists to the Pharisees of the New Testament, who he said sought to destroy Jesus and “were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda.” The complaint cites those statements as evidence of a retaliatory motive.