Stars and Stripes staffers sue Pentagon and Pete Hegseth over retaliatory firings

Lawsuit filed over First Amendment violations

Three dismissed staff members of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday, August 27, challenging their terminations by the Pentagon. Publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, and Middle East reporter Lara Korte submitted the complaint in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The legal action names the Department of Defense and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as defendants, asserting that the firings violated their First Amendment free speech protections and federal administrative law. Attorneys representing the journalists come from the Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers for Good Government, the Government Accountability Project, and a Yale Law School legal clinic.

The plaintiffs are asking a federal judge to halt their dismissals, which were officially issued for alleged insubordination on August 21 and scheduled to take effect after five business days. Stars and Stripes operates with partial funding from the Pentagon but has maintained editorial independence since its founding during the American Civil War.

Stripes' historical editorial independence is critical to its core mission of gathering and providing unbiased, credible journalism to the U.S. military community, particularly servicemembers and their families stationed overseas.

Aircraft carrier reporting and CBS interview

The dispute intensified following Stars and Stripes reporting on deteriorating living conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, a Navy aircraft carrier deployed to the Middle East whose tour was extended to nine months during the war in Iran. President Donald Trump dismissed reports concerning the vessel as fake news. Following the publication of the article, Slavin and Korte appeared in a CBS News interview to discuss potential military censorship.

In response to the television appearance, Pentagon official Andrew Brey emailed Lederer requesting that he fire Slavin and Korte. Lederer declined to terminate the two journalists and instead submitted notice of his intention to retire at the end of September. The Defense Department then moved to dismiss all three staff members on August 21 while issuing an instruction requiring the newspaper to safeguard information.

Leadership changes and escalating restrictions

Editorial friction between the newsroom and the Defense Department began mounting earlier in the year. In January, a Pentagon official labeled the publication woke, curtailed contracts with news services, and dismissed ombudsman Jacqueline Smith, whose congressional mandate was to protect the newspaper's independence.

Earlier in August, the Pentagon installed Captain William Urban, an active-duty Navy officer and former spokesman for both the Defense Department and NATO, as deputy publisher without Lederer's prior knowledge. Senate Democrats and editorial board members voiced concern that placing an active-duty officer in leadership would subject news decisions to military command orders. Urban told senior newsroom figures that he intended to assume the role of publisher, though he maintained in a published letter that his objective was to ensure editorial independence.

Broader legal resistance to Pentagon oversight

The lawsuit filed by Lederer, Slavin, and Korte represents the third First Amendment legal challenge directed at the Defense Department over Stars and Stripes in 2026. Smith filed suit following her dismissal, alleging retaliatory termination, while two board members filed a separate complaint in March to challenge operational restrictions.

The three journalists argue in their filing that the Pentagon's actions represent a systematic attempt to curtail independent news coverage for military personnel. The Defense Department and a Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment on the specific allegations in the lawsuit.