Jacqueline Smith, the former ombudsman for Stars and Stripes, filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Defense on Thursday, June 25, 2026.
The suit alleges that her April dismissal violated her First Amendment rights after she publicly opposed Pentagon restrictions on the military newspaper.
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The lawsuit was filed in the U. S.
District Court for the District of Columbia.
It names Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, and Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell as defendants.
According to the complaint, Smith was terminated ten days after writing an April 8 column that criticized the Pentagon's elimination of syndicated content and comics from Stars and Stripes.
Smith stated that her congressionally mandated three-year term was not scheduled to expire until December 2026.
"I’m charging that my First Amendment rights were violated for speaking out in the columns that I’ve written since Jan.
15, which were critical of what I saw as the Pentagon’s attempts to control the editorial content of Stars and Stripes," Smith said.
Smith acknowledged the risk of speaking out but emphasized her responsibility to the publication and the First Amendment.
"I knew it was risky to speak out, but my responsibility to Stripes and the First Amendment was paramount," she said.
She explained that her role was specifically tasked with maintaining editorial independence for the military community.
"The troops, they deserve to have the unfiltered news, not what the Defense Department wants them to hear," Smith said.
