The New York Times filed a lawsuit alleging that President Donald Trump’s Department of Defense violated the First Amendment by imposing new press access rules that drove out nearly the entire news corps — including conservative outlets — and replaced them with a group of MAGA bloggers and activists loyal to the regime.
“[T]he policy — which vests Department officials with unbridled discretion to immediately suspend and ultimately revoke a reporter’s [Pentagon Facility Alternate Credentials] for engaging in lawful newsgathering, both on and off Pentagon grounds, or for reporting any information Department officials have not approved — is neither reasonable nor viewpoint-neutral,” stated the lawsuit filed in the District Court for D.C. “It is exactly the type of speech- and press-restrictive scheme that the Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit have recognized violates the First Amendment.”
Furthermore, the suit continues, the Pentagon has responded to the exodus of reporters by bringing in a new contingent of Trump loyalists willing to comply with the demands.
“While Plaintiffs and many other journalists and news organizations no longer possess PFACs because they refused to accede to a Policy that would restrict independent reporting, the Department has welcomed what it calls the ‘next generation of the Pentagon press corps’ — individuals and media outlets strongly supportive of the Trump administration and whose viewpoints the Department favors,” said the suit.
This group, the filing continued, includes “Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow, who has promised to ‘make [the Administration] proud’ with his Pentagon coverage; Laura Loomer, an influential pro-Trump activist; and Raheem Kassam, editor in chief of the National Pulse, who described his publication as ‘basically an industry mag/site for MAGA world.’”
All of this is coming as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth faces sharp bipartisan questions over an order to kill survivors of wrecked vessels the administration deemed to be running drugs for cartels — which experts have broadly deemed a war crime, and which Hegseth has repeatedly changed his story on.
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