October 26, 2023

Ed. note: The Daily Media Update will return Monday, October 30.

The Courts

CNBC: ACLU says Trump gag order in DC election interference case violates First Amendment

By Kevin Breuninger

.....The American Civil Liberties Union argued Wednesday that the gag order slapped on former President Donald Trump in his federal election interference case violates the U.S. Constitution.

The ACLU, a frequent and vocal critic of Trump that applauded his criminal indictment in the federal case in Washington, D.C., said that the restrictions placed on his speech run afoul of the First Amendment.

“No modern-day president did more damage to civil liberties and civil rights than President Trump,” said the group’s executive director, Anthony Romero, in a press release.

“But if we allow his free speech rights to be abridged, we know that other unpopular voices — even ones we agree with — will also be silenced,” Romero said. 

“As much as we disagreed with Donald Trump’s policies, everyone is entitled to the same First Amendment protection against gag orders that are too broad and too vague,” he said.

Los Angeles Times: Opinion: A federal judge’s gag order against Trump may be satisfying. But it isn’t constitutional

By Erwin Chemerinsky

.....Although I often wish that Donald Trump would shut up, he has a constitutional right not to. A federal judge went too far in restricting his free expression Monday when she imposed a gag order on the former president...

The Supreme Court has long held that court orders prohibiting speech constitute “prior restraint” and are allowed only in extraordinary and compelling circumstances. In New York Times Co. vs. United States (1971), for example, the justices held that the courts could not constitutionally enjoin newspapers from publishing the Pentagon Papers, a history of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court held that there is a strong presumption against orders preventing speech.

New York Post: DHS sued over college program that linked conservative groups to neo-Nazis

By Josh Christenson

.....The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project is suing the Department of Homeland Security for withholding information about a grant of more than $350,000 it gave to a university program that linked the conservative group, Fox News and the Republican Party to militant neo-Nazis, according to a copy of the filing exclusively obtained by The Post.

National Taxpayers Union Foundation: TDC to First Circuit: Financial Privacy is a Substantial and Essential Right

By Tyler Martinez

.....Should the IRS be able to declare a particular kind of investment “suspicious” and demand the records of thousands of Americans on that declaration alone? That’s the question of Harper v. Werfel, currently before the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, centered in New England. 

The Taxpayer Defense Center filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief to describe how important financial privacy is to Americans–a right protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Tenth Amendments.

Congress

Washington Examiner: Biden official grilled by GOP over conservative 'disinformation' blacklist group funding

By Gabe Kaminsky

.....A top Biden administration official was confronted in a congressional hearing by Republicans over the U.S. government funding a "disinformation" group starving conservative media of advertising dollars.

The GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee is considering not reauthorizing the Global Engagement Center, a State Department-housed interagency that a Washington Examiner investigation this year revealed gave $100,000 to the Global Disinformation Index. GEC Acting Coordinator Daniel Kimmage faced questioning Wednesday from the panel's oversight and accountability hearing on the office's 2021 grant to the Global Disinformation Index, a British think tank feeding blacklists of conservative websites to advertisers to shut down disfavored speech.

Politico: Conservatives are increasingly knives out for the nation’s top cyber agency

By John Sakellariadis

....An agency set up under Donald Trump to protect elections and key U.S. infrastructure from foreign hackers is now fighting off increasingly intense threats from hard-right Republicans who argue it’s gone too far and are looking for ways to rein it in.

These lawmakers insist work by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to combat online disinformation during elections singles out conservative voices and infringes upon free speech rights — an allegation the agency vehemently denies and the Biden administration is contesting in court. The accusations started in the wake of the 2020 election and are ramping up ahead of 2024, with lawmakers now calling for crippling cuts at the agency.

FEC

Daily Caller: ‘Political Operation’: America First Legal Files Complaint Demanding Investigation Of False Hunter Biden Laptop Letter

By James Lynch

.....America First Legal (AFL) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Tuesday, requesting an investigation into the discredited 2020 letter from former intelligence officials that cast doubt on the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop archive.

AFL filed the complaint against Biden for President, the Biden Victory Fund, Biden Action Fund and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for failing to disclose the Biden campaign’s apparent role in developing the letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials that portrayed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation. 

Free Expression

Cato: Is Freedom of Expression Dangerous? No, Study Finds More Expression Helps Us Handle Conflict

By David Inserra

.....In this recession of free speech, the Future of Free Speech project, a collaborative venture between the Justitia think tank and Vanderbilt University, has released a report that examines the importance of free speech as a “safety valve” to prevent social conflict. Among the issues studied in the report is the common belief today that “extreme” or disfavored speech around contentious topics can lead to violence and social conflict. This belief can even be seen in the glib slogans “silence is violence” or “words are violence.”

Reason: Why Are College Kids Terrified?

By Nick Gillespie

.....Rikki Schlott and Greg Lukianoff discuss their new book, The Canceling of the American Mind.

Candidates and Campaigns

Daily Beast: Multi-Millionaire Senate Candidate Pushes the Bounds of Election Laws

By Roger Sollenberger

.....But while McCormick, who boasts a net worth in the hundreds of millions, likely won’t have trouble scrounging up the cash for his newly minted 2024 Senate bid, his financial maneuvering this time around has already drawn scrutiny among legal experts. And those experts told The Daily Beast that McCormick appears to be testing the limits of “testing the waters”—exploiting a loophole in campaign finance law to build out his operation while keeping those moves off the books.

Link via Yahoo

The States

Reason: Ron DeSantis Is Violating Pro-Palestinian Students' Free Speech Rights

By Robby Soave

.....Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has ordered pro-Palestinian student groups at Florida universities to shut themselves down. While the stated rationale is that these activists are providing "material support" for terrorism, the governor's order is a direct violation of free speech principles, as well as the First Amendment.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): UC Berkeley Reverses Instructor's Attempt to Give Extra Credit for Pro-Palestinian Political Activity

By Eugene Volokh

.....Newsweek (Matthew Impelli) reported today on this incident, which involved "a graduate student" instructor "at UC Berkeley's Department of Ethnic Studies." (The story may have been first broken by Israelly Cool [David Lange].) Fortunately, UC Berkeley promptly rejected this; when I e-mailed the media relations office, I was informed that:

Boston.com: Massachusetts GOP couple agree to state’s largest settlement after campaign finance investigation

By Steve LeBlanc, Associated Press

.....The settlements to be paid by Republican state Sen. Ryan Fattman, Worcester County Register of Probate Stephanie Fattman and others total hundreds of thousands of dollars — the largest amounts ever paid by candidate committees to the state to resolve cases after campaign finance investigations, according to Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, a Democrat.