Washington – President Trump has taken advantage of the weight of his office in recent days to accelerate a campaign to compell against his perceived political enemies and attacks against the protections of the 1st amendment.
Only in the last week, Trump replaced an American prosecutor who investigates two of his political adversaries with a loyal and ordered the Attorney General to find charges to present against them.
Its president of the Federal Communications Commission hinted punitive actions against networks whose journalists and comedians face the president.
Trump filed a claim of $ 15 billion against the New York Times, just for a judge to dismiss it.
The interim prosecutor of the United States in Los Angeles requested the secret service to investigate a publication on the social networks of the press office of Governor Gavin Newsom.
The Pentagon announced that it was imposing new restrictions on journalists who cover the United States army.
The White House officially labeled “Antifa”, a lazy affiliation of extreme left extremists, such as “domestic terrorists”, a designation without a basis in the United States law, which raises a direct challenge to protections of freedom of expression. And he said that legislators concerned about the legal predicate of the strike strikes in the Caribbean should simply overcome it.
The White House annulled an active investigation into the president's border advisor on an alleged bribery scheme that involved a $ 50,000 payment.
Trump emphasized his aversion to his political opponents during a Sunday commemorative service for conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who said “he did not hate his opponents.”
“That's where I didn't agree with Charlie,” Trump said. “I hate my opponents and I don't want the best for them.”
It has been an extraordinary series of attacks that use power levers that have been seen as sacred referees of public trust for decades, says academics and historians.
The assault is pointing exclusively to Democrats, liberal groups and establishment institutions, as well as the administration moves to protect its allies.
Erik Siebert, the US prosecutor in Virginia, resigned on Friday after facing pressure of the Trump administration to present criminal charges against New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud. In a publication on social networks later that day, Trump said he had “fired” Siebert.
A few hours later, on Saturday, Trump said he nominated the White House assistant, Lindsey Halligan, to assume the main role of Siebert Prosecutor's Office in Virginia, saying he was “hard” and “loyal.”
Later that day, Trump demanded in a publication on social networks aimed at “PAM”, referring to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi-who processes James, former FBI director James Comey and Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
“We cannot delay anymore, it is killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote. “” They accused me twice and accused me (5 times!), About nothing. Justice must be served, now! “
The White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, defended Trump's comments, saying on Monday that the president is “legitimately frustrated” and that “he wants the responsibility of these corrupt scammers who abuse their power, which abuse their oath, to attack the former president and the candidate for the highest position of the earth.”
“It is not to assemble the Department of Justice to demand responsibility for those who assemble the Department of Justice, and nobody knows how President Trump looks more,” Leavitt told journalists.
When the president requested the prosecution of his political opponents, it was reported that Tom Homan, the Border Advisor of the White House, was subject to an undercover case of the FBI that was later closed by the officials of the Trump administration. Homan, According to MSNBCHe accepted $ 50,000 in cash from undercover agents after he told them that he could obtain government contracts.
In Monday's news session, Leavitt said Homan did not take the money and that the investigation was “another example of the Biden Justice Department weapon against one of the strongest and most vocal supporters of President Trump.”
“The White House and the president support Tom Homan 100% because he did absolutely bad anything,” he said.
Some see recent actions as an erosion of an expected firewall between the Department of Justice and the White House, as well as a change in the idea of how criminal investigation should be launched.
“If the Department of Justice and any prosecution entity works correctly, then that entity is investigating crimes and not people,” said John Hasas, a law professor at the University of Georgetown.
The Trump administration has also begun a military campaign against ships that cross the Caribbean Sea that leaves Venezuela that says they carry narcotics and drug traffickers. But the objective murder of people at sea is generating concern among legal academics that the operation of the administration is extrajudicial, and democratic legislators, including Schiff, have introduced a bill in recent days that claim that the current campaign violates the resolution of war powers.
Political influence has played a role for a long time with federal prosecutors who are appointed politicians, said Hasas, but under “the current situation is greatly magnified.”
“The interesting thing about the current situation is that the Trump administration is not even trying to hide it,” he said.
Schiff said he sees it as an effort to “try to silence and intimidate.” In July, Trump accused Schiff, who directed the first political trial investigation on Trump, of committing mortgage fraud, which Schiff has denied.
“What he wants to try to do is not only to go after me and Letitia James or Lisa Cook, but sending a message that anyone who faces anything, anyone who has the audacity to call his corruption will be a goal, and they will go after you.” Schiff said in an interview on Sunday.
Trump campaigned in part in the protection of freedom of expression, especially that of conservatives, who, according to him, had been widely censored by the Biden administration and the leftist culture “awakening” in the United States, many of their most burning supporters, including billionaire Elon Musk and the now vice president JD Vance, praised Trump as a champion of freedom of expression.
However, since Trump assumed the position, his administration has repeatedly tried to silence his critics, even in the media, and take energetic measures in the speech that does not align with his policy.
And following the murder of Kirk on September 10, these efforts have become an unprecedented attack against freedom of expression and expression, according to constitutional academics and media experts.
“The Administration shows an impressive ignorance and contempt of the first amendment,” said Erwin Chemendnsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Faculty.
“We are in an unprecedented place in the history of the United States in terms of free press orientation and the exercise of freedom of expression,” said Ken Paulson, former editor in chief of USA Today and now director of the Freedom Freedom Center of the Middle Tennessee State University.
“We have had periods in American history as the red scare, in which Americans had to deliver neighbors who thought they were leaning to the left, but this is a multifaceted and multifaceted attack on all our rights of freedom of expression,” said Paulson. “In fact, I am quite surprised by the speed of this and the audacity.”
Bondi recently criticized the “hate speech”, which the Supreme Court has previously defended, in an online publication, suggesting that the Department of Justice will investigate those who will speak against conservatives.
The president of the FCC, Brendan Carr, threatened ABC and his parent company, Disney, with repercussions if they did not take Jimmy Kimmel out of the air after Kimmel commented on Kirk's alleged murderer that Carr found unpleasant. ABC quickly suspended the Kimmel program, although Disney announced Monday that he would return on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon said that it will require that news organizations agree not to disseminate any information that the Government has not approved for liberation and revoke the press credentials of those who publish sensitive material without approval.
The critics of the administration, the organizations of freedom of expression and even some conservative experts who have long criticized the “cancellation of the culture” of the progressive left have spoken against some of these policies. Academics have also said that the amalgam of administration's actions represents a dangerous deviation of the law and tradition of the United States.
“What unites all this is how blatant inconsistent is with the 1st amendment,” said Chemerinsky.
Chemerinsky said that the lower courts have constantly withdraw against the administration's overreach when it comes to a protected speech, and hopes they continue to do so.
He also said that, although the Supreme Court has often been on the president of the president in disputes over his policy decisions, he has also constantly defended freedom of expression, and hopes he continues to do so if some of the previous freedom of expression arrive at the Superior Court.
“If there is something that this court has said repeatedly, it is that the Government cannot prevent or stop the discourse based on the expressed point of view,” said Chemerinsky.
Paulson said that US media companies must refuse to obey and continue to cover the Trump administration and the Pentagon as aggressively as ever, and that the average Americans must recognize the severity of the threat raised by said censorship and speak against it, regardless of their political persuasion.
“This is real, a complete assault on freedom of expression in the United States,” said Paulson. “And it will depend on citizens to do something about it.”
Chemerinsky said that defending freedom of expression should be a problem that unites all Americans, especially because political power changes hands.
“It is understandable that those in power want to silence the speech they don't like, but the goal of the 1st amendment is to protect the discourse we don't like,” he said. “We don't need the first amendment to protect the speech we like.”
