One Business Day After a Judge Restored Reporters' Passes, Trump's Pentagon Closed Their Workspace

The Next Business Day

On March 20, 2026, a federal judge ordered the Pentagon to restore seven New York Times reporters' press credentials.¹² The next business day, the department announced that it was closing their workspace and would require escorts for journalists entering the building.² Later that month, Pentagon reporter Julian Barnes arrived for a scheduled interview. It was postponed after he got there, and officials immediately escorted him out.²

On April 9, the judge, Paul L. Friedman, wrote:²

Opinion, ECF 55, The New York Times Company, et al. v. Department of Defense, et al., Civil Action No. 1:25-cv-04218 (PLF), U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia²

The Department did not comply with the Court’s Order.

His April opinion imposed no contempt penalty, but he concluded that the closure and the escorts were transparent attempts to negate his ruling, not security measures or fulfillment of earlier commitments.² That is the charge, and it reaches past the Pentagon: Trump's departments obstructed the access, the release, and the evidence that federal courts had ordered them to provide.²³⁴ In Minnesota, a detained man, Segundo A.P.G., was still held days after a judge ordered him freed, his lawyer reported.³ In Los Angeles, a court held the government in contempt for failing to search agents' phones for evidence.⁴ Trump chose and kept the officials who led those departments.⁵⁶⁷⁸

The Pentagon's new policy, issued March 23, closed the Correspondents' Corridor immediately and promised an outside annex without a completion date.² Reporters could work in a separate library and conference-center building and enter the Pentagon only for scheduled briefings, press conferences, and interviews arranged through public affairs, with an escort at all times.²

Friedman's March ruling had struck down provisions of the Pentagon's press-credential policy under the First and Fifth Amendments.¹² The replacement policy renamed its restriction on seeking information not authorized for release as a ban on intentionally inducing unauthorized disclosure.² It listed six permitted activities, including receiving unsolicited information and questioning authorized spokespeople, but Friedman found that these exceptions still left reporters uncertain about what they could ask and whom.² Friedman found little substantive difference between the two and concluded that the replacement violated his explicit mandate.² The department's own advisor, Timothy Parlatore, had described the revision as using more words to say the same thing, the opinion records.²

The Cost Was Reporting That Could Not Happen on Time

Barnes described the cost in declarations quoted by the court: Pentagon reporting had often required conversations with upwards of a dozen officials and other personnel in a day, responding to rapidly changing events.² Under the new rules, he expected to spend hours waiting and walking between the library and the Pentagon, even if he could obtain appointments and escorts.² By June, he testified that going to the Pentagon was rarely worthwhile under the escort requirement.⁸

The department also closed its press office to journalists, an Associated Press report republished by the Free Speech Center on June 2 said.⁹ Officials said they designated it a classified space because speechwriters handling classified material were now sharing it; Friedman's June ruling on the escorts did not decide whether that designation was lawful.⁹⁸

Chris Meagher, a former Pentagon public affairs official, explained that informal conversations helped officials correct misunderstandings early and helped reporters verify information.⁸ Friedman found that the barriers burdened newsgathering and caused time-sensitive harm that could not be repaired later.⁸ The cost was lost access to people and timely information, not merely an inconvenient walk.⁸

The Security Defense, and Two Appellate Wins

The Pentagon's strongest defense was that it had complied with every requirement of the March order, which said nothing about escorts or the location of press workspace.¹⁰ It argued that reporters' unrestricted movement helped them identify sources of sensitive information and that limiting access would protect national security.¹¹¹² The department also submitted testimony that sixty reporters had attended Pentagon media events and that no credential holder had been unable to enter because an escort could not be arranged. Friedman explained that the claimed harm was the loss of spontaneous conversations and source relationships, rather than escorts being unavailable on request.⁸

The department won twice on appeal.¹¹¹³ On April 27, a divided D.C. Circuit panel allowed it to require escorts pending appeal.¹¹ The majority found the new escort rule likely fell outside the original order and credited important security interests; it did not decide whether the rule independently violated the Constitution.¹¹ The government sought a stay only for unescorted access. It left the rest of the enforcement order unchallenged, including the prohibition on limiting reporters' entry to particular purposes.¹¹

The Times filed a second lawsuit, and on June 30 Friedman granted preliminary relief, finding it likely to succeed on its First Amendment retaliation claim.⁸ He found that the department's evidence did not establish its claimed security benefit.⁸ The department had left sympathetic journalists' unescorted access intact under its earlier policy, then imposed escorts when the court restored the Times' credentials.⁸

On July 16, another divided D.C. Circuit panel stayed that injunction, finding the department likely to defeat the retaliation claim because the escort requirement applied evenhandedly to all reporters and the Times had not shown a distinctly adverse impact compared with other covered reporters.¹³ Judge Bradley Garcia dissented, arguing that applying a retaliatory policy broadly did not immunize it.¹³ The government's August 10 appeal brief sought reversal; the Reporters Committee filed briefs supporting the Times in September.¹²¹⁴

A Release Order With No Release

The Pentagon was not alone. In Minnesota, the order was to free a man. On January 27, 2026, Judge Jerry W. Blackwell ordered Segundo A.P.G. released immediately and required an update within 48 hours.³ The government missed that filing, then two more deadlines: for the overdue update and for an explanation of why it should not be held in contempt.³ On February 1, the man's lawyer reported that he still had not been released; by noon the next day, the government had filed none of the required updates.³ "It is past time for such noncompliance to end," Blackwell wrote.³

His order raised possible sanctions, imposed none, and summoned government lawyers to explain these failures and noncompliance with orders in four other matters, including Roman N. v. Trump, which named the President as a respondent.³

AP reported that one of those lawyers, Julie Le, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney assigned to help the Justice Department in Minnesota, lost that assignment after her courtroom comments; NOTUS reported that Homeland Security also fired her, calling the probationary attorney's conduct unprofessional.³¹⁵¹⁶ NOTUS reported that Le complained about the system and her job while describing her efforts to obtain compliance; she also told the judge she had already submitted a resignation letter for the Minnesota assignment and requested a transfer back to DHS. DHS said she had abandoned her obligation to represent the government's interests.¹⁶ The reports establish the dismissals, not a judicial finding of unlawful retaliation.¹⁵¹⁶

A Court Found Intentional Noncompliance, and the Government Paid

In Los Angeles, the order was to produce evidence. On July 28, 2026, Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong held the government in civil contempt for failing to comply with an order to image agents' phones and search their communications from 15 immigration operations.⁴ The plaintiffs needed those communications to test the government's assertion that its agents had reasonable suspicion for every stop.⁴ The missing searches denied them timely access to that evidence and forced their lawyers to pursue enforcement.⁴

The court's factual findings recorded that the government had claimed agents did not use their phones' native texting function for work, while five of six agents and officers deposed in December said they used personal phones for work. One testified that although he used WhatsApp for work, he neither searched his personal phone nor produced or saved messages.⁴

The imaging order dated to January 16, more than six months earlier.⁴ That portion of the order was temporarily stayed while the parties discussed the scope of imaging; the court confirmed on March 17 that the stay had expired.⁴ The July opinion recorded that, of 1,253 Customs and Border Protection agents who answered a questionnaire, 885 said they used personal phones for work.⁴ And 88 consented to imaging.⁴ The government argued that personal phones were outside its control and that imaging them raised Fourth Amendment objections.⁴ Those objections did not explain why it had imaged none of the personal phones belonging to the 88 agents who consented.⁴

Frimpong found intentional noncompliance and lack of good faith, imposed $500 per day until compliance, and ordered reimbursement of the plaintiffs' enforcement-related legal costs.⁴ She allowed the government to request a pause in fines if it complied with everything except the portions subject to its pending possession-and-control objections.⁴

On August 4, when the contempt order became public, the government reported paying $3,500.¹⁷¹⁸ That figure is the August 4 payment alone; the docket lists further payment notices through October 6, and litigation over the imaging order continued into October.¹⁷¹⁸

One More Finding, and the Wins That Count

One more episode belongs with these.¹⁹ In Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, whom Trump had nominated to the U.S. Attorney's office, kept claiming it after Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled her appointment unlawful.¹⁹ On January 20, 2026, Trump-nominated Judge David Novak found that her continued claim to the title directly defied binding court orders that had not been stayed or overturned, and barred its use before his court unless she lawfully obtained the office.¹⁹²⁰ Halligan also challenged Novak's authority to initiate the inquiry, raising separation-of-powers objections; he rejected that defense, explaining that courts can enforce ethical rules against lawyers appearing before them.¹⁹ He rejected her argument that Currie's ruling did not govern other cases and declined a disciplinary referral; the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General had joined the response defending her continued use of the title.¹⁹

The administration also won in court, and the wins count.²¹²² In Philadelphia, Judge Cynthia Rufe ordered the Interior Department and National Park Service to restore the President's House site after exhibits and other items were removed, then issued a second order reciting the government's failure to obey the first and noting it had not sought a stay in her court.²³²⁴ The Third Circuit later vacated her injunction and ordered four counts dismissed for lack of jurisdiction; Rufe dismissed them on July 13.²¹²⁵ On August 31, 2026, the Supreme Court stayed an injunction against above-ground construction of Trump's White House ballroom, finding the preservation group likely lacked standing and crediting national-security harms from stopping the project; the majority expressly did not decide the ballroom's legality.²²²⁶ And in October 2025, the Seventh Circuit set aside a requirement that a Border Patrol chief appear in court every weekday, finding that it intruded into the executive branch's personnel management.²⁷

An appeal or stay can correct a trial judge's overreach.²⁸²⁷ But an appeal alone does not suspend the duty to obey an enforceable order.²⁸²⁴

The Duty Trump Holds

Trump put these officials in charge. He chose Pete Hegseth to lead the Defense Department, and Hegseth was its secretary when it imposed the new barriers.⁵⁸ He nominated Pamela Bondi, the named lead respondent in the Minnesota release case, to lead Justice.⁶³ The White House announced that his choice for Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, would implement the President's agenda; Mullin was the named lead defendant when the Los Angeles court held the government in contempt.⁷⁴ In May, Trump called what a Times reporter wrote "sort of treasonous", according to Friedman's June opinion.⁸

The Constitution requires the President to take care that the laws are faithfully executed and provides impeachment and removal for high crimes and misdemeanors.²⁹ Andrew Johnson was acquitted in 1868; Nixon, whom the House Judiciary Committee charged with disobeying its own subpoenas, complied with the Supreme Court's tapes ruling.³⁰³¹³²

The charge is concrete. A court found that the Pentagon substituted barriers designed to defeat restored access, and reporters lost timely access to officials.²⁸ A Minnesota judge documented missed release and reporting obligations while, by his lawyer's account, a man stayed detained.³ A California court found intentional noncompliance with a discovery order and made the government pay.⁴¹⁸ The President's duty is to secure obedience to the law, including enforceable court orders.²⁹ Using public power to frustrate that obedience is an abuse of office, and it belongs in the case for impeachment.