April 28 (UPI) -- The Department of Defense may require reporters to be escorted inside the Pentagon, a federal appeals court has ruled, handing the Trump administration a rare win in litigation challenging its press restrictions.
A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted the Trump administration's emergency request for a stay pending appeal, but only concerning its Pentagon escort requirement.
The 2-1 ruling stays part of U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman's April 9 order that had found an interim Pentagon policy was in violation of his earlier order that blocked the Department of Defense's initial policy requiring journalists to sign a form acknowledging that they could have their credentials revoked for gathering unauthorized information.
The Trump administration argued that the escort requirement of the interim policy was a new rule not affected by the initial order and was put in place to prevent the disclosure of sensitive or classified information.
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