California Atty. General Rob Bonta accused the president of the Federal Communications Commission on Monday, Brendan Carr, of illegally intimidating television stations to devote themselves to a conservative line in favor of President Trump, and urged him to reverse the course.
In a letter to Carr, Bonta specifically cited ABC's decision to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Outside the air after Kimmel commented on the murder of Trump's nearby ally, Charlie Kirk, and Carr demanded that ABC's parent company, Disney, “take measures” against the night host.
Bonta wrote that California “is the home of many artists, artists and other people who exercise their right to freedom of expression and free expression every day”, and that Carr's Disney demands threatened with their rights of the first amendment.
“As the Supreme Court remained more than sixty years ago and reaffirmed unanimously last year,” the first amendment prohibits government officials from trusting the threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion to achieve the suppression of disadvantaged discourse, “Bonta wrote.
Carr and Trump have denied having played a role in the suspension of Kimmel, claiming that it was because their program had poor qualifications.
After Disney announced on Monday that Kimmel's program would return to ABC, Bonta said he was “happy to listen to that ABC is reversing his capitulation with the illegal threats of the FCC”, but that his “concerns are found.”
He rejected Trump and Carr's participation denials, and accused the administration of “riding a dangerous attack against those who dare to speak against.”
“Censoring and silencing critics because you do not like what they say, be it a comedian, a Pacific lawyer or manager, is fundamentally anti -American,” while such censorship of the United States government is “absolutely chilling,” said Bonta.
Bonta asked Carr to “stop his censorship campaign” and undertakes to defend the right to freedom of expression in the United States, which said he would require “an express disruption” of his previous threats and “an unequivocal promise” that he will not use the FCC “to take reprisals against the private parties” by the speech that does not disagree with the progress.
“The media have reported today that ABC will return Mr. Kimmel's program to its transmission tomorrow night. While it is encouraging to see the exercise of freedom of expression that finally prevails, this does not erase its threats and the suppression resulting from the freedom of expression last week or the perspective that their threats are relaxed in the future,” Bont wrote.
After Kirk's murder, Kimmel said during a monologue that the United States had “reached some new minimums during the weekend, with the Maga gang desperately trying to characterize this child who murdered Charlie Kirk as more than one of them and doing everything possible to write down political points.”
Carr replied in a conservative podcast and said: “These companies can find ways to change the behavior, take measures, frankly in Kimmel, or, you know, there will be an additional job for the FCC ahead.”
Two main owners of ABC affiliates dropped the program, after which ABC said it would be “previously planned indefinitely.”
Both Kirk's death and Kimmel's suspension, which followed the cancellation of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” by CBS, began a tense debate on freedom of expression in the United States, both Kimmel and Colbert are critics of Trump, while Kirk was a fervent defender.
Constitutional academics and other defenders of the first amendment said the Administration and Carr have clearly exerted inappropriate pressure on media companies.
Erwin Chemendnsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law Faculty, said that Carr's actions were part of a broad assault on the freedom of expression of the administration, which “is showing an impressive ignorance and contempt of the 1st amendment.”
Summer López, the interim executive co -president of Pen America, said that this is “a dangerous moment for freedom of expression” in the United States due to a series of Trump administration actions that are “quite clear violations of the 1st amendment”, including Carr's threats, but also statements about the “hate speech” of Atty. General Pam Bondi and the new Pentagon restrictions on journalists who report on the United States Army.
She said that Kimmel's return to ABC showed that “public indignation makes the difference”, but “it is important that we generate that level of public indignation when the orientation is of people who do not have that same prominence.”
Carr has also received criticism from conservative corners, including Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is president of the Senate Committee, which supervises the FCC. Recently he said in his podcast that it seemed “incredibly dangerous for the government to get into the position of saying that we are going to decide what speech we like and what we are not, and we will threaten to get out of the air if we do not like what you are saying.”
Cruz said that he works in close collaboration with Carr, whom he likes, but what Carr said was “dangerous as hell” and that it could be used in the line “to silence all conservatives in the United States.”
