Bullies and bluster and threats. Oh my!
From his first cabinet picks, Donald Trump demonstrated a bully’s intent both to stick a stubby finger in the world’s eye and a need to surround himself with a thick posse of wingmen to do his fighting for him. It’s working. He’s already succeeded in getting ABC News to capitulate to him for daring to use the R-word.
The most litigious president in U.S. history is just getting warmed up (New York Times):
The legal threats have arrived in various forms. One aired on CNN. Another came over the phone. More arrived in letters or emails.
All of them appeared aimed at intimidating news outlets and others who have criticized or questioned President-elect Donald J. Trump and his nominees to run the Pentagon and F.B.I.
The small flurry of threatened defamation lawsuits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage. Before and after the election, Mr. Trump and his allies have discussed subpoenaing news organizations, prosecuting journalists and their sources, revoking networks’ broadcast licenses and eliminating funding for public radio and television.
Or maybe he’ll just order troops to shoot news executives in the legs. At the very least, Trump transition copiers must be eating up reams of paper printing NDAs with non-disparagement clauses. And that’s just for Trump’s “friends.”
A bad precedent
Litigation, or the threat of it, is among Trump’s weapons of choice. The $15 million ABC settlement sets a bad precedent and whets Trump’s appetite for more. The grifter will see it as another profit center. If he can’t void the First Amendment by royal fiat, he’ll threaten enough legal action that the fourth estate self-censors. Or else make money suing them.
Media lawyer Elizabeth McNamara expects more of the same in the current political environment:
“There’s been a pattern and practice for the past couple of years of using defamation litigation as a tactic to harass or test the boundary of case law,” said Ms. McNamara, who represented ABC News and Mr. Stephanopoulos but was speaking in general. (Her law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine, has also represented The New York Times.)
Over the past several weeks, lawyers for Mr. Trump and two of his most high-profile nominees — Pete Hegseth, the potential defense secretary, and Kash Patel, whom Mr. Trump has picked to run the F.B.I. — warned journalists and others of defamation lawsuits for what they had said or written.
Freedom was a theme (and a theme song) for the Harris campaign. But freedom of speech, like loyalty, only works one way in authoritarian cults.
And if lawsuits don’t work to “cancel” the libs, there are always flying MAGAs.
Happy Hollandaise everyone!