Government lawyers’ lies and stonewalling endanger press freedom

Government lawyers during President Donald Trump’s second term have outright lied to federal judges and refused to comply with court orders in numerous cases involving journalists and the First Amendment.

That’s according to a newly updated report from nonpartisan law and policy journal Just Security. Since last year, the journal has been evaluating the state of the “presumption of regularity” — a legal doctrine under which judges assume that the executive branch of the U.S. government is following appropriate procedures and being honest about the reasons for its actions.

That presumption was probably never warranted — after all, many of the dishonest lawyers serving in the Trump administration aren’t newcomers to the federal government. Some have been around for decades. But Just Security’s report reveals that the presumption has been consistently and shockingly undermined since Trump returned to office — leading one judge to announce that the presumption had been “destroyed.”

Cases involving journalists, the First Amendment, and government transparency are highlighted throughout the report. As the Trump administration launches attacks on press freedom at an unprecedented pace, judges should be presuming the opposite of regularity — that any claims from the administration in such cases must be heavily scrutinized.

And when those claims don’t hold up, judges need to sanction and hold in contempt government lawyers and officials who undermine the legal system.

Here are examples in the report of cases involving press and government transparency:

Crushing Voice of America

A federal court ordered the administration to reverse its attempted dismantling of the U.S. Agency for Global Media and Voice of America, and to restore VOA’s programming, calling the shutdown of both bodies “arbitrary and capricious.” In response, the administration stonewalled, provided “misleading and contradictory information,” and dragged its feet on providing information about its reconstruction efforts. The judge said that “The defendants’ persistent omission and withholding of key information in this case has been a Hallmark production in bad faith.”

Shutting press out of the Pentagon

A federal court ordered the Pentagon to drop an unconstitutional press access policy. It responded with a so-called interim policy that violated the court’s order and introduced new access restrictions, which the judge called “a blatant attempt to circumvent a lawful order of the Court.”

Concealing names in the Epstein files

Journalist Katie Phang is fighting to force the Justice Department to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, after the Trump administration released far fewer files than it had promised, with more redactions than the law allows. In response to an order mandating that Attorney General Todd Blanche justify all redactions in the files, Blanche claimed that certain redactions were the names of Epstein’s victims, but didn’t provide supporting documentation. “The Defendant’s assertions do not comply with the Court’s Order,” the judge in the case said.

Targeting reporting on Musk’s social platform X

The nonprofit media watchdog Media Matters sued for an injunction protecting it from demands from the Federal Trade Commission for a trove of newsgathering and editorial materials — demands the nonprofit called retaliation for its investigation into X.com profiting from extremist content. A federal court granted the injunction, noting that the government hadn’t provided any explanation for its investigation into Media Matters until after it was sued, and that there was “evidence of pretext” in its stated reasons.

Raiding a reporter’s home

While applying for a search warrant to search Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home and seize her devices, the Justice Department declined to mention the Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits most search warrants targeting journalists and others who disseminate information to the public. The court involved in the case sharply criticized the omission and refused to allow the government to search Natanson’s seized devices. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) also filed an attorney ethics complaint against Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, who applied for the warrant authorizing the raid of Natanson’s home.

Banning press from the White House

A judge ordered the Trump administration to restore press credentials to journalists at CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, saying “the record does not come close to supporting” the administration’s justification — “national security” — for banning the outlets.

Yanking funding for media

The Trump administration withheld funds previously earmarked by Congress for the National Endowment for Democracy, which invests in independent media. The administration’s claim it had done so to stabilize the endowment’s funding was “not plausible,” the court involved said, pointing to contradictory statements from the administration, including urging defunding “because of its alleged support of media organizations critical of the President and his allies.”

Arresting journalists for covering a protest

The government criminally charged journalists Don Lemon, Georgia Fort, and Junn Bollmann in connection with the reporters’ coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a Minneapolis, Minnesota, church. While producing documents in the discovery phase of the case, it used unauthorized redactions to conceal witness identities and contact information. Those redactions, the judge said, had no basis and showed the government had unilaterally decided “that it’s going to take steps separate and apart from that court order that affect a defendant’s rights to a fair trial, to effective assistance of counsel.”

The report also found ample misconduct in other First Amendment cases, like those involving the detention and attempted deportation of students Mahmoud Khalil, Mohammed Hoque, Efe Ercelik, and Aditya Wahyu Harsono for their protected, pro-Palestinian speech, and the administration’s overall policy allowing it.

Despite federal judges’ criticism of the government’s courtroom antics, contempt findings and sanctions were few and far between, appearing in only a few of the cases in the report — and none of the ones impacting the press that are discussed above.

Just Security’s list keeps getting longer — harsh words in judicial opinions clearly aren’t doing enough to make government attorneys follow the law. Absent meaningful sanctions, what do they have to lose? They’re not paying their legal fees, you are.

The judicial branch is tasked with keeping the executive branch in check — it’s time for judges to step up and protect journalists’ and sources’ constitutional rights before they’re eroded further.