Weaponizing Government Power: Constitutional Attorneys Push Back Against Trump Administration’s Attacks On The Media & Free Speech
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Warning that the government cannot use its regulatory powers to punish or intimidate news organizations for speech it dislikes, The Rutherford Institute has joined a coalition of civil liberties organizations to push back against the Trump Administration’s attempts to undermine the constitutionally protected freedom of the press.
In an amicus brief filed in American Broadcasting Companies v. Federal Communications Commission, The Rutherford Institute, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), and a broad coalition of civil liberties groups have asked a federal court to halt the Federal Communications Commission’s unprecedented efforts to use its licensing authority as a pretextual means of retaliating against ABC over editorial decisions and programming critical of the Trump Administration.
In asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to intervene, the coalition contends that the FCC’s early review of broadcast licenses held by ABC-owned television stations constitutes political retaliation in violation of the First Amendment. Noting that a former FCC Chairman stated, “Never in its history has the agency ever acted so corruptly and unlawfully to intrude on broadcasters’ First Amendment rights,” the coalition calls on the court to halt this abuse of executive power.
“The government does not get to decide which news organizations deserve to speak and be heard based on whether their coverage pleases the president,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “The First Amendment means very little if government officials can use licenses, investigations and regulatory threats to pressure the press into changing what it reports, whom it interviews or what opinions it allows to be expressed. Whether the target is ABC today or some other media outlet tomorrow, government cannot be allowed to turn its regulatory power into a weapon for punishing disfavored speech.”
ABC filed a federal lawsuit after the FCC ordered eight ABC and Disney-owned television stations to submit applications to renew their broadcast licenses years before those licenses were scheduled to expire. According to ABC’s lawsuit, the FCC had not ordered an early license renewal in more than 50 years and had never required a group of commonly owned network stations to undergo simultaneous early renewal. For 19 months prior to this, President Trump and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr repeatedly targeted ABC programming and personalities, and denounced ABC’s editorial decisions and the views expressed on ABC programs as “corrupt,” with Trump insisting its stations “should lose their Licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives.”
Although the FCC maintains that its early-license review concerns potential violations of federal communications law and its equal-employment-opportunity rules, including questions about Disney and ABC diversity policies, the civil liberties coalition argued that the FCC’s stated rationale—which cannot be used as a vehicle for regulating editorial and programming choices—is a pretext for retaliation against protected speech.
In calling on the District Court to intervene, the coalition warned about the chilling effect of prolonged regulatory investigations, which force journalists and broadcasters to operate under the threat of future government sanction. The coalition’s brief argues that the First Amendment prohibits the government from doing indirectly what it cannot constitutionally do directly.
Robert Corn-Revere, Ronald G. London, and Will Creeley at FIRE advanced the arguments in the amicus brief.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated, and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
American Broadcasting Companies v. Federal Communications Commission
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Article posted with permission from John Whitehead
