Trump regime and the law

Jon Passantino   - On Friday afternoon, a federal judge delivered a stinging rebuke to Pete Hegseth’s escalating war on the press—striking down the Pentagon’s sweeping effort to control who gets to report the news.

In a 40-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled that the draconian press credentialing policy engineered by Hegseth and his leadership team, turning the Pentagon into a cozy safe space hidden from scrutiny, was flatly unconstitutional. The judge highlighted Donald Trump’s foreign wars and the importance of reporting for the public’s understanding of the entanglements.

“Especially in light of the country's recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing—so that the public can support government policies, if it wants to support them; protest, if it wants to protest; and decide based on full, complete, and open information who they are going to vote for in the next election,” Friedman wrote.

Friday's ruling was a long time coming and Status has been documenting the road to it. Since last spring, we've tracked Hegseth's systematic campaign against press independence step by step: the revocation of hallway access, the unprecedented credentialing restrictions, the banishment of journalists who refused to comply, and their replacement with MAGA influencers cosplaying as reporters.