Three Stars and Stripes employees fired by the Pentagon are fighting back in federal court, claiming the Defense Department punished them for doing journalism the brass did not want published.
Publisher Max Lederer, Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin, and reporter Lara Korte filed a 45-page complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday, asking a judge to block their dismissals. The lawsuit names the Department of Defense as the defendant and alleges the firings violate both the Pentagon's own personnel rules and the First Amendment, The Hill reported.
At the center of the dispute is a question military families and service members deserve answered plainly: Can the Pentagon fire the staff of its own taxpayer-funded newspaper for publishing unflattering coverage, and call it a personnel matter?
The complaint lays out a sequence that began on Aug. 12, when Andrew Brey, a Pentagon official working in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's office, ordered Lederer to hand separation notices to Slavin and Korte. The charge against both was insubordination, specifically, remarks the two made during an interview on "CBS Sunday Morning."
Lederer did not deliver the notices. Five days later, he contacted Brey seeking clarification. Brey's response, according to court documents, was blunt:
"Deliver the notices as instructed."
Instead of complying, Lederer announced his retirement. The Pentagon then fired all three staffers on Aug. 21. Their dismissals are set to take effect five business days from the date they received the termination memo.
Hegseth's Pentagon has already drawn bipartisan scrutiny over a separate round of military personnel decisions that prompted oversight demands from lawmakers in both parties.
The lawsuit does not limit its retaliation theory to the CBS interview. Four organizations, the Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers for Good Government, the Government Accountability Project, and the Yale Law School Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, filed the complaint on behalf of the three staffers. Their core allegation connects the firings to Stars and Stripes coverage of conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln during an extended deployment in the Middle East.
The complaint states:
"In direct contravention of those First Amendment principles, Defendants are attempting to fire Plaintiffs for speaking up as private citizens in support of the press's freedom to cover military operations, its need to reach all servicepersons, and in retaliation for their publication of a news report on deteriorating conditions aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln during its extended tour of duty in the Mid-East."
What those "deteriorating conditions" involved is not detailed in the available court filing excerpts. But the allegation itself is significant: it asserts the Pentagon punished journalists for publishing a story about the welfare of American sailors, the very people Stars and Stripes exists to serve.
The firings did not happen in a vacuum. The Pentagon has spent months reshaping its relationship with Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that has traditionally operated with editorial independence even though its staff are DOD employees and the outlet receives partial Pentagon funding.
In January, Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell wrote that the department planned to overhaul the paper's direction:
"We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members."
Wanting a military newspaper to focus on warfighting rather than progressive editorial priorities is a reasonable goal. But the steps the Pentagon took after that statement raise harder questions about whether "modernize" became a euphemism for "control."
In April, the Pentagon removed Jacqueline Smith, the Stars and Stripes ombudsman. Smith's role was to monitor the newspaper's editorial independence and report concerns directly to Congress, a watchdog function designed to keep political hands off the newsroom. Smith sued the Pentagon over her firing in June.
That same month, two unnamed Stars and Stripes advisory board members filed their own lawsuit against the Pentagon, alleging the department was attempting to censor the newspaper's content. The current status of both those cases is unclear from available reporting.
Earlier in August, the Pentagon installed Navy Capt. William Urban, an active-duty service member, as the new deputy publisher of Stars and Stripes. The appointment drew questions from Democratic lawmakers, though the specifics of their objections are not detailed in the court record.
Hegseth has faced friction on multiple fronts this year. Reporting has placed him in political crosshairs over Iran deal disagreements, and Secretary of State Rubio blocked his Europe troop drawdown plan ahead of a NATO summit.
On Aug. 21, the same day Lederer, Slavin, and Korte were fired, the Pentagon's public affairs office released a 17-page guidance document governing Stars and Stripes operations. The timing alone is worth noting.
The document states that the newspaper will maintain "editorial operations independent of the military chain of command, military public affairs activities, or other external influences, free from censorship or propaganda." That language sounds like a guarantee of independence.
But the same document adds a significant caveat: Stars and Stripes must "safeguard information by preventing the disclosure of classified information and controlled unclassified information and by avoiding the publication of material that would adversely affect national security or clearly endanger U.S. personnel." That second category, "controlled unclassified information" and material that could "adversely affect national security", is broad enough to cover almost any story the Pentagon finds inconvenient.
The guidance also requires Stars and Stripes to "coordinate all of its congressional briefings, reports and non-newsgathering engagements" with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War for Legislative Affairs before they happen and within that office's "established notification and review timelines." In plain English: the newspaper now needs Pentagon approval before talking to Congress about anything other than active news-gathering.
Stripping the ombudsman, installing an active-duty officer as deputy publisher, firing three senior staffers, and issuing new guidance requiring pre-clearance of congressional contacts, all within a few months, is not modernization. It is a methodical campaign to bring an independent outlet to heel.
The Pentagon has also faced questions about internal discipline under Hegseth's leadership on other fronts, including a crackdown after sailors were found ignoring the Pentagon's own grooming standards.
The Hill sought comment from the Pentagon on the lawsuit. The department declined.
That silence leaves the Pentagon's side of the story told only through its January statement about "woke distractions," its Aug. 21 guidance document, and the insubordination charge against Slavin and Korte for their CBS interview. The substance of what the two actually said on camera has not been detailed in the complaint excerpts or the Pentagon's public statements.
The lawsuit asks the court to prevent the firings from taking effect. If a judge grants that relief, Lederer, Slavin, and Korte would remain in their positions while the case proceeds. If not, their dismissals become final within days.
Stars and Stripes has served American troops since the Civil War. Its editorial independence is not a luxury, it is the reason service members trust it. Conservatives who rightly oppose government-controlled media at home should not look away when the same instinct surfaces inside the Pentagon. Accountability runs in every direction, including up the chain of command.
A military newspaper that cannot report on the conditions sailors endure at sea is not a newspaper. It is a bulletin board.
