Disney sues FCC and its chair, escalating fight against Trump's chief censor
Disney today sued the Federal Communications Commission and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in a lawsuit that aims to stop what it called a "campaign of censorship" waged by the Trump administration against ABC. Disney, ABC, and the eight broadcast stations they own filed a complaint in US District Court for the District of Columbia. They also submitted a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that would halt the FCC proceeding in which Carr is threatening to deny renewals of broadcast licenses held by ABC stations. The lawsuit accused the FCC of violating the First Amendment by retaliating against the company's protected expression. "Again and again, the Administration has attacked ABC’s speech—the stories its journalists report and the viewpoints its network programs air," the lawsuit said. "Over time, those attacks have escalated into express demands that ABC be stripped of its broadcast licenses because of its speech ." Read full article Comments
Disney today sued the Federal Communications Commission and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in a lawsuit that aims to stop what it called a "campaign of censorship" waged by the Trump administration against ABC.
Disney, ABC, and the eight broadcast stations they own filed a complaint in US District Court for the District of Columbia. They also submitted a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that would halt the FCC proceeding in which Carr is threatening to deny renewals of broadcast licenses held by ABC stations.
FCC demands “total capitulation” in Trump censorship campaign, Disney suit says.
The lawsuit asked the court to halt any further actions in the early license review that Carr ordered for all eight ABC stations. In particular, it asked the court to prevent the FCC from issuing a Hearing Designation Order that would all but guarantee a negative outcome for the ABC stations.
While ABC station licenses are scheduled for renewals between 2028 and 2031, Carr took the highly unusual step of ordering the stations to file renewal applications several years early. Revoking a license in the middle of a term has been described as somewhere between difficult and effectively impossible .
