Disney Accuses Trump Officials of ‘Egregious Violations’ of Constitution Amid FCC Battle | ABC

Disney lawyers on Tuesday accused the Trump administration of “gross violations of the U.S. Constitution” and censorship during the first court hearing over the Federal Communications Commission’s anticipated review of the media giant’s licenses for eight local television stations.

District Judge Loren AliKhan appeared unswayed by the government’s arguments that the order requiring Disney’s ABC to seek renewal of local TV station licenses years earlier was linked to an investigation into parent company Disney’s hiring practices.

ABC, Disney and their group of channels filed a lawsuit against the FCC in August, seeking to prevent the US media regulator from taking further action to punish or pressure the channel in connection with the order.

In its lawsuit, ABC argued that the FCC’s actions — taken at the request of Donald Trump’s appointee, Brendan Carr — were actually intended to chill the network’s rhetoric, which the president and Carr said was biased against the administration.

In legal filings and at Tuesday’s hearing, the network cited past threats by the chairman and FCC chairman that endangered the licenses of television networks, including ABC on several occasions, for editorial purposes.

“These are egregious violations of the U.S. Constitution,” prominent attorney Beth Wilkinson, arguing on behalf of ABC, told the judge during the roughly two-hour hearing.

She said ABC faces a “chilling effect” that has affected — and will continue to impact — its editorial decision-making, as the network avoids political bookings and any other programming decisions that could draw further ire from the Trump administration and Carr. “This chilling effect is happening and will happen every day,” she said, causing “irreparable harm” to the network and its ability to disseminate independent information for the benefit of the American people.

ABC said it stopped programming politicians on daytime show The View and opted to air a Trump speech in July on its streaming platform so as not to upset the president. “Our editorial decisions are affected right now,” Wilkinson said, emphasizing the importance of decisions on how to cover next month’s crucial midterm elections. “We monitor everything we do… We have already changed our behavior for fear of reprisals. »

She also noted that ABC recently chose to air an interview Jimmy Kimmel conducted with Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico on YouTube, rather than on television, “because the FCC has no control over YouTube.”

Dimitar P Georgiev, representing the FCC defendants, argued that “there is no reason to believe that the early renewal order resulted in changes to plaintiffs’ editorial decisions.” He also argued that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was not the appropriate jurisdiction to hear the case, saying ABC could instead appeal any adverse ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

ABC is asking the judge to issue a ruling barring the FCC from taking further action against the network’s licenses. “We are calling for an end to pure retaliation, which places us in a process in which we should never be forced to participate,” Wilkinson said.

In what Wilkinson called a “fatal admission,” Georgiev said the license renewal process “is not about licenses” but rather is a “tool” to expedite the commission’s review of ABC for potential violations of federal equal opportunity regulations. The attorney also said the FCC may choose to end the licensing review process early if ABC is able to satisfy its document requests.

Considering that the FCC opened its investigation into Disney’s employment practices last year, with document requests ongoing since then, the judge asked, “Why was it only this summer that you determined that their responses were woefully inadequate?”

She also questioned why the commission required the company to submit renewal applications for all eight of its stations simultaneously.

And she noted Carr’s previous comments on network licensing, including a remark in July when he said ABC’s decision not to air the president’s speech that month on its linear channel could factor into the licensing investigation.

“It strikes me with all the comments that this was simply a discovery dispute. What made this so different that you had to request an early renewal of the license?” Judge AliKhan asked FCC lawyers, whom she asked, for a list of some of the other enforcement actions the commission could have taken without seeking the network’s licenses sooner.

And she noted that there was “some light” in the FCC’s arguments, given that the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) investigation was handled by the commission’s enforcement office, while the licensing order was issued by the media office.

The judge ended the hearing without issuing an order, saying she would take the matter “under advisement.”