America’s courts keep defending the First Amendment as Trump tries to silence critics

The American courts keep defending the First Amendment despite President Donald Trump’s best efforts to crack down on free speech and the free press. That’s a glass-half-full assessment of the media environment after a pair of judges ruled against Trump this week. Many other examples have emerged in recent months. Judges have scolded the Trump administration for violating the First Amendment rights of ICE critics; for silencing the Voice of America network; and for sending secret subpoenas to news organizations. A judge in Oregon has even blocked the administration from enforcing a rule against noisy protests outside federal buildings, essentially finding that loud speech is still free speech. Last month Reuters counted a total of 75 federal rulings since Trump’s second inauguration finding that his administration had “infringed on First Amendment rights including freedoms of speech, religion, and the press.” The administration has pushed back in some, though not every, instance. This week, in Iowa, district judge Scott Beattie tossed out Trump’s highly unusual lawsuit against pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register and the Register’s parent company USA Today Co. Beattie found that the “Iowa Poll and its reporting are fully protected political speech.” A few hours later, in Washington, federal judge Timothy Kelly rejected Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico and ordered the White House to restore access “immediately.” Though the Trump administration appeared to defy the ruling for several hours, journalists from the three affected news outlets are now back at work. Media lawyers expect the administration to continue targeting disfavored news outlets. In the White House ban case, Kelly’s emergency order is only in effect for two weeks while a broader legal battle plays out. In the Iowa case, Trump’s legal team has vowed to appeal. Still, as Adam Steinbaugh of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression wrote on X, the dual rulings amounted to a striking setback for the president. “Between the press ban and Selzer/Des Moines Register, the leader of the free world lost in two separate legal cases over his efforts to suppress ‘fake news.’ In the span of eight hours,” Steinbaugh wrote. Free speech advocates have blasted the president for betraying his 2025 inauguration speech promises to “stop all government censorship” and “bring back free speech to America.” Several of the most prominent free-speech battles of Trump’s second term have centered on his administration’s efforts to detain and deport foreign-born students and activists over their pro-Palestinian advocacy. Judges have ordered some released from detention, though some legal battles continue. Trump has also followed through on some of his threats to sue news outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the BBC. Courts have repeatedly viewed his defamation lawsuits skeptically, though he has been given numerous chances to refile claims and try again. ‘Always testing, testing’ Judges in Minnesota have also signaled concern about the Trump Justice Department’s pursuit of journalists who covered a controversial demonstration inside a church in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Justice Department charged Don Lemon and Georgia Fort with interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshippers. Both journalists are fighting the charges and accusing the government of vindictive prosecution. A federal magistrate judge rejected the Justice Department’s initial attempt to bring the charges, raising questions about how prosecutors were able to secure grand jury indictments. Last month another Minnesota judge, Laura Provinzino, took the unusual step of demanding to see the grand jury materials relating to Lemon and Fort, suggesting she is probing whether there are grounds to dismiss the case. Provinzino did not say she had already found evidence of any misconduct. In a motion to dismiss the case filed last month, Lemon’s lawyers wrote that “the government should not be permitted to use criminal prosecutions to chill journalism disfavored by the president.” Similar concerns were raised over the summer when the Justice Department issued subpoenas to several New York Times reporters amid a leak investigation. The Times fought the subpoenas in court, and a judge criticized the government’s sloppy legal work. The Justice Department withdrew the subpoenas. Numerous free-speech cases are pending in the courts, including Disney/ABC’s lawsuit charging the FCC with violating the First Amendment, and The Times’ lawsuit over the Pentagon’s press access restrictions. First Amendment groups and media executives expect the tests will keep coming. “Trump is always testing, testing,” an executive at one of CNN’s network rivals said, invoking that famous line from “Jurassic Park” about the velociraptors “testing the fences for the weaknesses, systematically. They remember.” “He’s probing to see what he can get away with,” the source remarked not long after Trump said he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico last Friday. Major news outlets responded with an unusual show of solidarity. “We thought it was important — and I was in touch with the other news organizations — to find a way to make a unified action against the White House,” Matt Murray, the executive editor of The Washington Post, said at the Texas Tribune Festival on Thursday. “It’s important media organizations act together at this moment,” Murray added. Law professor and commentator Harry Litman cheered what he called “collective resistance” in a column about the media ban case. “We always have to anticipate the prospect that a feckless and reflexively defiant White House will inject heart attacks into the legal system,” Litman wrote. “But if the media hangs tough and the courts stay faithful to the law, we can continue to ride out the storm.”