ScreenshotThe court ruled that the taxpayer-funded employees likely spoke in their official capacities, not as private citizens protected by the First Amendment.A federal judge handed the Pentagon a major legal victory Friday, rejecting an emergency attempt by three senior Stars and Stripes employees to block their proposed terminations.U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a President Trump appointee, denied the employees’ request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in a sharply worded 24-page ruling.Publisher Max Lederer, Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin, and Middle East reporter Lara Korte sued the Pentagon after receiving proposed separation notices accusing them of insubordination.The three claimed that the Pentagon violated their First Amendment rights by targeting them over public statements defending the taxpayer-supported newspaper’s editorial independence.Judge McFadden was not convinced.“At this early stage, the Court disagrees and denies the motion,” McFadden wrote.The judge ruled that Slavin and Korte likely participated in the CBS News interview as part of their official government responsibilities, not as private citizens engaging in independently protected speech.McFadden wrote:“Plaintiffs’ own pleadings and the CBS News segment suggest that they spoke as part of their official duties and not as private citizens.”The court found that the employees were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claim, failed to establish irreparable harm, and could not show that the balance of equities favored judicial intervention.The ruling clears the way for the Pentagon to proceed with the terminations while the underlying lawsuit continues.McFadden even described the dispute’s aftermath as “lawfare” in the opening paragraph of his order.As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, the Pentagon moved to fire the three employees as the Trump administration pushes to modernize Stars and Stripes and move the publication away from what Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called “woke distractions that syphon morale.”Slavin and Korte appeared in a July 5 CBS News segment examining the Pentagon’s relationship with the military newspaper.Slavin claimed that being ordered to replace an accurate story with Pentagon-approved material would cross a “red line.”Korte declared during the interview that she worked for Stars and Stripes, “not for the Pentagon, not for an administration, not for any policymaker.”But the facts presented by the employees themselves came back to haunt their request for emergency relief.Both employees acknowledged that they obtained approval from their supervisors, participated from Stars and Stripes offices, were identified by their official titles, and discussed issues directly involving their government-funded workplace.Korte also admitted that she reviewed talking points about the newspaper’s editorial independence with her supervisor before the interview.Slavin acknowledged that he had already participated in approximately 16 media interviews as editor-in-chief concerning Stars and Stripes under new Pentagon leadership.According to McFadden, those facts strongly suggested that they appeared on CBS in their official capacities.“They have pled themselves out of a preliminary injunction,” the judge wrote.McFadden also rejected the argument that government-employed journalists deserve a special First Amendment exception for everything they say publicly.The CBS interviews were not articles, editorials, or news reports produced by Slavin and Korte, the judge explained. Instead, the two were serving as sources or representatives of their organization during an interview conducted by another news outlet.The court concluded that their comments therefore did not qualify as “core editorial or journalistic functions” that could potentially receive additional constitutional protection.Lederer’s claim fared no better.Lederer did not participate in the CBS segment, but he allegedly refused an order to deliver the separation notices to Slavin and Korte. He later spoke publicly about his disagreement with the Pentagon’s plans for the newspaper.McFadden ruled that refusing a directive from a supervisor was not protected by the First Amendment, especially when Slavin and Korte had not shown that their own constitutional rights were likely violated.“This failure to carry out a directive from a supervisor finds no shelter under the First Amendment,” McFadden wrote.The court also rejected the employees’ theory that the CBS interviews were merely a pretext and that Pentagon officials actually retaliated against them over a critical Stars and Stripes report about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.McFadden noted that Korte did not write the report and that the plaintiffs did not establish that Slavin or Lederer was directly involved in producing it. The Pentagon also submitted evidence that the notices against Slavin and Korte were completed before the carrier story was published.The Gateway Pundit previously reported that the employees filed a 45-page lawsuit against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Parnell, senior Pentagon official Andrew Brey, and the Department of Defense.They sought to stop their terminations and demanded reinstatement and back pay if the firings became final. McFadden stressed that Friday’s ruling does not permanently resolve the case and acknowledged that discovery could uncover additional evidence.But the employees failed to meet the heavy burden required to obtain emergency relief.“Perhaps discovery will strengthen Plaintiffs’ case,” McFadden wrote. “But at bottom, on the current record, Plaintiffs’ real complaint seems to be that they were victims of a cruel bait-and-switch.”Whatever other claims the employees may ultimately pursue, McFadden concluded that the Pentagon’s actions do not presently amount to a clear First Amendment violation.For now, the journalists’ attempt to use the courts to stop the Pentagon’s personnel decisions has hit a brick wall.The post Trump-Appointed Judge Rejects Stars and Stripes Staffers’ Bid to Block Pentagon Firings appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.