Pete Hegseth may have to testify under oath about his anti-trans slurs. A federal judge put the DOJ on notice

A federal judge overseeing the legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s transgender military ban raised the possibility Wednesday of forcing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to testify under oath about his public statements targeting transgender people, including remarks in which he used an anti-trans slur before senior military leaders.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who previously found in Talbott v. United States that the administration’s policy appeared motivated by unconstitutional discrimination, sharply questioned Justice Department attorneys during a status conference in Washington, D.C., over their insistence that Hegseth’s statements were irrelevant to determining whether the ban was driven by anti-trans animus.

Related: ‘High T’ Pete Hegseth hurls anti-trans slur at Iowa State Fair campaign stop while Iran war rages on

Reyes ultimately ordered Hegseth to answer written questions from attorneys who represent transgender service members challenging the ban. But she made clear that if his answers were evasive or inadequate, she would force him to sit for a deposition.

“I am very aware that he is the secretary of defense and has a lot of constraints on his time, but he has time to tweet, and he has time to put out videos, and he has time to speak to the generals,” Reyes said.

The exchange came one day after the Justice Department filed notice that it would seek summary judgment, asking Reyes to resolve the lawsuit without a trial. In that filing, government attorneys argued that courts should assess whom a policy targets by examining its written language rather than public statements by officials responsible for implementing it.

Reyes rejected the suggestion that such statements were irrelevant to allegations of discriminatory intent.

“That’s not the case for an animus finding. We know that,” she told Justice Department attorney Jared Littman.

Related: Macho man Pete Hegseth turns ‘State of the Force’ address into a spectacle of slurs and self-congratulation

The judge confronts Hegseth’s rhetoric

Reyes specifically referenced Hegseth’s remarks at a Quantico, Virginia, gathering of senior military leaders, where she said he described what the armed forces no longer allow.

“I think one of the things he said was, ‘No tr***ies,’” Reyes said, repeating the anti-trans slur while recounting her understanding of the publicly reported remarks.

“I understand tra**y to be a derisive term for trans individuals,” she added.

She said the remarks, along with his social media posts, were legitimate subjects for discovery because the defense secretary helped put the challenged policy into effect.

Reyes also revisited a February 2025 Pentagon social media announcement stating that transgender troops were disqualified from military service without an exemption. Hegseth reposted the statement, which the judge considered when she issued a preliminary injunction against the ban in March.

Government lawyers previously argued that the announcement referred to people with gender dysphoria rather than transgender service members generally.

“The government got up here and told me that when he tweeted transgender people are excluded from the military, he did not mean transgender people are excluded from the military,” Reyes recalled.

She said the plaintiffs were entitled to investigate whether his statements demonstrated the discriminatory intent alleged in their lawsuit.

“I’m not casting aspersions,” she said. “I’m just talking about what allegations of the complaint are.”

Reyes also invoked Hegseth’s testosterone screening and treatment initiative, announced in July, which she has previously questioned because the administration cites medical costs and ongoing hormone treatment as reasons to exclude transgender troops.

The Pentagon has promoted testosterone replacement therapy for qualifying service members as beneficial to military health and readiness, while defending restrictions on gender-affirming care for transgender personnel.

“I think that those are issues that the plaintiffs have to get out from Secretary Hegseth for no other reason than it was Secretary Hegseth who made those statements,” Reyes said.

Related: Transgender Army master sergeant dares Pete Hegseth: Say your anti-trans slurs to my face

Ten questions, and potentially a deposition

Justice Department attorneys argued that compelling testimony from a sitting Cabinet secretary would be unduly burdensome and that plaintiffs should seek information through less intrusive means.

Reyes acknowledged the extraordinary nature of such a deposition. She offered to limit questioning to one hour, require the parties to agree on topics beforehand, and even monitor the proceeding herself.

Reyes appeared skeptical that written questions would produce meaningful answers from the defense secretary, predicting that government attorneys would carefully craft responses to avoid addressing the substance of his remarks.

"You’re going to draft responses that are very carefully lawyerly tailored responses that are going to say nothing,” Reyes told Littman. “That’s not an aspersion. That’s what I would do if I read them. That’s what defense lawyers do."

The judge warned that evasive answers would only bring the parties back to court and could force Hegseth to sit for a deposition.

“If they give questions and the responses are a bunch of non-answers, totally fine, but then we’re going to get back into deposition world,” Reyes said. “Now, if they give questions and he gives actual responses, then I won’t allow a deposition.”

After the government proposed five written questions and plaintiffs sought 25, Reyes directed the attorneys to make final offers. The government offered 10, while the plaintiffs remained at 25. Reyes selected 10.

The plaintiffs must submit their questions by October 19, with Hegseth’s verified responses due November 5.

Reyes warned that inadequate answers could put the deposition back on the table.

The plaintiffs also received a significant reinforcement of their legal team Wednesday, when Reyes approved adding O’Melveny & Myers LLP, one of the country’s prominent litigation firms, to represent them pro bono.

The firm, which has approximately 800 attorneys internationally, reported $1.2 billion in revenue in 2025 and ranked 57th nationally by gross revenue in The American Lawyer’s 2026 rankings. Its lawyers regularly handle cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal appeals courts, and its pro bono practice ranked sixth nationally in The American Lawyer’s 2025 scorecard.

O’Melveny’s arrival adds considerable legal resources to a case already being litigated by attorneys from the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and GLAD Law.

Reyes welcomed the firm’s involvement and thanked its leadership for committing the substantial attorney time and financial resources this magnitude of litigation requires.

“Please thank your executive committee on the court’s behalf for the firm’s efforts,” Reyes told attorney Lauren Weinstein, who appeared for O’Melveny. “I know that it involves a lot of extensive attorney time and also the cost, so thank you.”

Related: Hegseth attacks transgender service members in speech: 'No more dudes in dresses. We're done with that s**t'

Judge seeks internal Pentagon records

The hearing also exposed a separate dispute over hundreds of internal government communications that could reveal how the transgender military ban was developed.

The Justice Department has sought to withhold documents under deliberative process privilege, a legal protection generally covering internal government deliberations.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that the privilege cannot be used to conceal evidence of discriminatory intent in a constitutional challenge.

Reyes appeared receptive to examining that argument, noting that she had already made a preliminary finding of animus.

“I can’t assume that all of it was deliberative given the other allegations in the case,” she said.

She ordered a random sample of 20 disputed documents submitted for private judicial review and directed the parties to provide additional briefing.

In another dispute, plaintiffs complained that the Pentagon produced records in formats that made them difficult to review, including a document exceeding 1,300 pages with insufficient information to distinguish individual emails from attachments.

Reyes ordered attorneys and technical staff to resolve the problems within a week, warning that continued difficulties could result in additional depositions.

Related: Trump administration tells federal judge to ignore Pete Hegseth’s anti-trans posts

She also limited the plaintiffs to eight representative service members expected to testify at trial.

The proceedings come as the Pentagon has begun involuntary separation actions against six plaintiffs, including lead plaintiff Army Reserve 2nd Lt. Nicolas Talbott, despite an appellate ruling that provides protections for currently serving plaintiffs but has not yet taken effect.

The administration continues to argue that its restrictions concern military readiness and medical qualifications rather than transgender identity. The plaintiffs contend that the policy is designed to remove transgender people from military service regardless of their individual records.

Reyes has scheduled trial proceedings for January 2027.

Attorney for the plaintiffs, Shannon Minter, legal director at NCLR, told The Advocate in a post-court interview that he’s satisfied with the hearing’s outcome.

“We appreciate her attention to this case and her effort to move it expeditiously toward trial,” Minter said of Reyes.