Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testifies in front of the House Armed Services Committee in Washington on Feb. 29, 2024. Secretary Austin was called before the committee to explain the circumstances surrounding the failure to communicate his absence to President Joe Biden during his recent hospitalization.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, formerly known as the secretary of Defense, sparked a mystery on Sept. 25 when he ordered about 800 top military officials to report to a hastily arranged meeting at a U.S. Marine Corps base in Virginia five days later.

What's that about? A Pentagon spokesman said Hegseth will address those leaders, offering no other details.

That got me thinking about the last time a mystery surrounded a Defense secretary, and how the news media broke through a veil of secrecy to reveal that, and how Hegseth now wants to prevent journalists from doing exactly this sort of work.

Remember when Trump campaigned on Pentagon news coverage?

Politico in January 2024 broke the news that then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had been hospitalized for three days and that Pentagon officials did not alert then-President Joe Biden or other senior White House officials. Even the deputy Defense secretary, second in command at the Pentagon, was out of the loop about Austin's health.

Donald Trump, then campaigning for a second term, reacted to the news by demanding that Austin "be fired immediately for improper professional conduct and dereliction of duty."

Austin kept his job but had to apologize in a congressional hearing a month later, after he had recovered.

This all happened because journalists working at the Pentagon pursued a story with significant implications for America's security. But the Pentagon, in a recent memo to journalists, tried to clamp down on that sort of work.

And, because this is Trump's administration, a Pentagon spokesperson has accused the news media of "misrepresenting" what the memo said after journalists accurately reported what the memo said.

Hegseth's Department of War tries to limit press access, reporting

The Pentagon's 17-page memo on Sept. 18 covers plenty of topics for journalists – the requirement to wear media credentials on site, where they can and can't go in the building with or without an escort, where they can take pictures or shoot video, and where they can park their cars.

But a line on Page 3 jumped out because it said the Department of War "information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified."

That smacks of a kind of unlawful government censorship known as "prior restraint," which the U.S. Supreme Court has previously struck down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

Page 4 of the memo says Pentagon press credentials "may be denied, revoked, or not renewed" for "unauthorized disclosure" of the kind of information described on Page 3.

That's the threat: Publish something the Pentagon doesn't want published and a journalist may get kicked out of the Pentagon.

Trump adminstration tries some misdirection on the Pentagon memo

Chief Pentagon Spokesperson Sean Parnell, in a Sept. 24 social media post, tried a lame head fake by focusing on where reporters can go and why they need to wear credentials. Hegseth had already tried the same dodge, focusing on the credentials issue in a social media post.

Parnell's post included a letter, in response to concerns expressed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, that said the Pentagon memo "does not impose restrictions on journalistic activities" and acknowledged "rights unequivocally protected by the First Amendment."

But Parnell, while claiming the memo was really all about making sure Pentagon staffers follow rules about disclosing information to the news media, leans hard on the word "may" when referencing concerns about revoking press credentials for disclosing Department of War information without approval.

Translation: We're not for sure going to follow through with our threat. But we may.

This is standard-issue "who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes" stuff from the Trump administration. The memo says what it says. The backlash is well deserved.

Trump exploits prior news coverage to bash Biden administration

Even Trump seems dubious about what motivated the memo, telling journalists on Sept. 21 "No, I don't think so" when asked if the Pentagon should get to decide what gets reported.

That's understandable. Trump exploited plenty of fine reporting by journalists about America's military during the 2024 presidential campaign.

The disastrous withdrawal of the U.S. military from Afghanistan in 2021 under Biden was a regular theme in Trump's speeches and social media posts, fueled by reporting from journalists, even as it happened on a timeline Trump set in his first term.

The Pentagon had to revise its version of events around an American drone strike in Kabul that killed up to 10 civilians after reporting from The Washington Post and The New York Times, publications Trump regularly attacks for their accuracy. Trump used that reporting to blame Biden and "incompetent" generals.

But Trump was a candidate then. Now he's president, running a sprawling effort to abuse government authority to silence critics with lawsuits, threats from the Federal Communications Commission, executive orders and criminal investigations by the Department of Justice.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Sept. 24 showed a complete inversion of American faith in the First Amendment since Trump took office in January. Eight months ago, 57% of registered voters were optimistic that freedom of speech would be protected. Now, 53% say they are pessimistic about free speech being protected.

Trying to restrict what journalists can report about America's military, and then pretending to be a victim of the reporting on those attempted restrictions, is a page right out of Trump's political playbook.

Listen to how ABC late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel described the Pentagon memo on Sept. 23 when he returned to his show after being suspended for nearly a week for mocking Trump and his supporters, which sparked a national debate about freedom of speech.

"They want to pick and choose what the news is," Kimmel said. "I know that's not as interesting as muzzling a comedian, but it's so important to have a free press, and it is nuts that we aren't paying more attention to it."

Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hegseth calls mysterious meeting on heels of limiting press access. Coincidence? | Opinion

Reporting by Chris Brennan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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