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 onReyes 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 sel