The Pentagon's Correspondents' Corridor remains closed. As this paper reported yesterday, Judge Paul Friedman invoked Catch-22 and Kafka to describe the access regime the Defense Department erected after his March 20 ruling restored press credentials. That ruling ordered access restored. The Pentagon responded by shuttering the corridor where credentialed journalists had worked for decades [1].

The closure has now lasted since March 23 -- fourteen days of a wartime press building operating without a functioning press workspace. Reporters work from an unfinished external annex. Movement inside the building requires military escorts. The shuttle bus to a press area relocated to the Pentagon library was initially restricted before the Defense Department relented under public pressure [2].

The Lawfare dispatch from the March 31 hearing documented Judge Friedman's frustration in granular detail: journalists were told their credentials grant access to a room reachable only through a corridor they cannot use [3]. "How weird is that?" the judge asked. "Is it Catch-22? Is it Kafka?" The government's attorneys offered no resolution. The judge has not yet ruled on the motion to compel compliance.

The Trump administration has said it will appeal the original ruling. No new order has been issued. The corridor is dark. The war continues to be run from a building that has locked out the reporters covering it.

-- ANNA WEBER, Berlin