The New York Times filed a new lawsuit against the Department of Defense Monday arguing that an interim press policy requiring reporters to be escorted while at the Pentagon was “patently unconstitutional.”

The 50-page complaint, brought by the Times and reporter Julian E. Barnes, names as defendants the DOD, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, and Hegseth’s special advisor Timothy Parlatore. Parlatore is Hegseth’s personal attorney and also wrote the interim press policies being challenged in this lawsuit, according to The Washington Post.

It’s the latest salvo in the ongoing battle between the press and the Pentagon, with President Donald Trump’s administration seeking to bring in more friendly media allies and restrict Pentagon press credential access for those who might provide more critical reporting.

One of Hegseth’s new rules included requiring reporters to have a government escort to access certain areas of the Pentagon, specifically those near the offices for the Defense Secretary and his aides.

The initial set of new press pass credential policies were struck down in March via a previous lawsuit by the Times by Senior U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman, a Clinton appointee, but an appeals court stayed the decision and allowed part of the new rules, the escort requirement, to remain in effect while the federal government filed its appeal.

First Amendment advocacy groups and press freedom organizations lambasted the new policies. The National Press Club said they sparked “serious concerns about transparency, oversight, and the public’s right to know.”

Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander issued a statement saying that the interim policy requiring escorts for reporters was “hastily put into place” and “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,” Stadtlander added.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a partner at the law firm of Gibson Dunn, which is representing the Times, issued a statement calling the interim policy “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.”

The complaint calls the escort requirement “patently unconstitutional” and says it “violates the Administrative Procedure Act and Plaintiffs’ First and Fifth Amendment rights,” arguing that it “not only revives unconstitutional provisions vacated by that prior court order but also employs additional means of carrying forward the same impermissible, viewpoint-discriminatory aim that has motivated Defendants from the beginning: closing the Pentagon to any journalist or news organization unwilling to report only what Department officials approve.”

Read the complaint here.

This is a breaking news story and has been updated.

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