A national group representing writers and journalists and the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump.
Suzanne Nossel with PEN America says she’s suing Trump on behalf of journalists for violating their First Amendment rights when his talk crosses the line into threats.
“The President can say what he wants about the media being the enemy of the American people, he can cry out fake news, but when he invokes the mechanisms of government, the power of government to punish critical reporting, that’s where he crosses the line and that is not protected by the First Amendment.”
Nossel says the lawsuit cites several instances where the President has used his power to punish media companies.
“He threatened CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, in the context of their proposed merger with AT&T because of critical coverage of CNN, and then the Justice Department went ahead and challenged that merger.”
The Trump administration has not yet responded to the suit. It has lost a First Amendment case before when journalists sued Trump for blocking them on Twitter.