“The Commission’s attempted censorship of ABC has attracted condemnation across the political aisle,” the network wrote.

ABC’s response is the latest pressure point in its war with Carr, who in April took the unconventional step of calling up all eight Disney-owned TV stations for an early license review. While Carr has said the move grew out of an agency investigation into Disney’s hiring practices, pro-Trump groups like the Center for American Rights and Media Research Center in June asked the agency to deny the license renewals.

Those groups raised a host of complaints about ABC, including about the politics of the company’s programming.

Trump upped the ante this month when he used a live television address about election security to call on both ABC and NBC to lose their broadcasting licenses, accusing both networks of “fraud” for declining to air the speech.

A week later, Carr said the issue would likely come up in the ABC license review and that broadcasters should generally air key primetime addresses from the president.

ABC cited that flap in its newest filing, along with various other threats Trump has made over the years against the network’s licenses.

“There is no question why the Commission is singling out these eight stations,” the network wrote. “Each is owned by ABC, and the Administration has openly and repeatedly called for the revocation of ABC’s licenses, because it dislikes the content and viewpoints expressed on ABC network programs.”

ABC called on the FCC to dismiss the conservative petitions to deny the licenses, saying they lack merit and delve into dicey territory for the agency. “The Commission cannot rest a renewal decision on the content of a station’s programming,” it added. “Nor may it condition renewal on whether a broadcaster gave sufficient airtime to particular viewpoints, covered particular stories, featured particular guests, adopted particular interview formats, or framed public issues in a particular manner.”

The fight comes amid a broader debate over Carr’s media agenda, which has featured investigations and criticisms of outlets’ programming decisions and an explicit desire to reduce the power and influence of the national networks over their affiliated TV stations.

ABC has responded to Carr by bringing on veteran litigators such as Republican former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement and, in the latest filing, adding Beth Wilkinson, a trial lawyer who is a founding partner of Wilkinson Stekloff.

The network is separately defending its daytime show “The View” in another proceeding over whether its interviews count as “bona fide news,” exempting it from the FCC’s requirements for broadcasters to offer equal time to opposing political candidates. Carr has said he’s reviving enforcement of that rule, after decades of the agency giving a de-facto pass to late-night and daytime television talk shows.

The FCC’s broad legal authority to ensure that broadcasters act in the “public interest” has been backed by decades of Supreme Court decisions — but it’s lately attracted scrutiny from some conservatives who warn that it might be too much power for appointed bureaucrats to have.

Those include Gorsuch, who used the court’s June decision striking down the autonomy of so-called independent agencies to muse aloud about the potential abuses of bodies such as the FCC. “A business out of favor with the party in control of the White House might be able to stave off an FCC investigation,” Gorsuch wrote in his concurring opinion to that ruling.


ABC’s new filing also links to remarks last September by Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees the FCC. “I think it is unbelievably dangerous for [the] government to put itself in the position of saying, ‘We’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off-air if we don’t like what you’re saying,” the Texas senator said on his podcast at the time, during a dispute between the network and Carr over late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

Carr has disputed accusations that the license review is politically motivated, including in his podcast interview this week with POLITICO.

In the interview, he blamed the need to review Disney’s licenses on a lack of candor the network showed in responding to the FCC’s diversity investigation, which began last year.

“The Disney case is about evidence coming to light — we haven’t made a final decision yet — that they had been discriminating inside the company based on race and gender, in terms of hiring, promoting, compensation, workplace opportunities,” Carr said this week. “If that all ends up being true, based on all the evidence that Disney gets to put in, that’s a very concerning development — and it does raise fundamental questions about fitness to have a license.”

>you're not allowed to blatantly lie about the president
>Democrat fascists think this is censorship
Only an ESL shill would defend this

>>1526485
>Only an ESL shill would defend this
Correct, not being able to lie about Biden would literally destroy MIGA faggots

>>1526485
>>you're not allowed to blatantly lie about the president
If this was really a law then more than half of all miggers would be in jail for lying about Obama and Biden.

>>1526485
Turk-tier thinking.

>>1526485
You do realize that if trump could be sued for lying, he'd be forever in debt.

>>1526745
Not to mention trump owes millions to the woman he raped and continues to defame.

>>1526485
What blatant lies? MAGA says this shit's about hiring practices and saying it's fraud that they didn't air Trump's speech.
And if blatantly lying about the president wasn't allowed then Trump and the entirety of MAGA would be in jail.

>>1526764
Everybody on the planet would be in jail if lying were a crime, but it isn't. Simple as.

>>1526765
Name a public figure who lies more often than Trump.

>>1526755
he's paid her millions but owes her millions more because he lost a second court case

>>1526769
I... I can't...

>>1526774
no, he owes her money because of the raping
Trump just lost the court case because he's a rapist

>>1526769
All of them. Trump isn't on TV often enough to be the most lying public figure, it'd just be whomever has the most screen time. Probably one of those youtube faggots, or if you want to stick with business. probably Elon. Between drumming up investors and doing the talk show circuit, he's being recorded quite a lot. Make no mistake, thoughever, that everything you see on film, digital or otherwise, is a lie.

Don't be such a faggot, Anon. You lost the election, deal with it.

>>1526822
>Don't be such a faggot, Anon. You lost the election, deal with it.
I can't. It's the Concorde Effect, anon. I'm in way too deep at this point to stop.

>>1526481
I'd be terrified if ABC were practicing free speech and not paid speech.
Also fuck Ted Cruz. And fuck liggerals too.
ABC->Disney->Vanguard (#2 shareholder after Iger)
Liggerals align with billionaires once again.

>>1526822
>Make no mistake, thoughever, that everything you see on film, digital or otherwise, is a lie.
Oh man, anon...

>>1526822
Imagine being a willing unpaid lackey for a corrupt, lying billionaire like this poster.

>>1526769
I think most public figures don't have to lie as much because they're not asked difficult questions.
Can you think of a Joe Biden interview where he was asked about the Epstein files? Did he lie and say he would release the files or tell the truth and say he wouldn't release the files? Trick question he was never asked those sorts of questions so he never had to lie.

>>1526960
You already know the files were sealed under court order until after Biden left office. Everyone else here knows that too. I don't know who you're trying to fool but you should really go back to twitter where someone might believe you.

>>1526961
If the files were sealed it was in a way that was unprecedented

No, there is no strong historical precedent for keeping high-profile criminal investigation files entirely sealed for years solely because of prosecutions against associates, in the way sometimes claimed for the Epstein files. Standard legal practices involve targeted protections (e.g., grand jury secrecy, victim privacy, ongoing investigation risks, or appeals), but not blanket, multi-year sealing of entire case files during associate prosecutions
Al Capone (tax evasion conviction 1931):

His prosecution focused on taxes, not the full organized crime network. Extensive records (raids, ledgers, witness statements) were used at trial and became public. No multi-year blanket seal on "Capone files" while chasing associates.
Grand jury testimony and some evidence had standard protections, but core trial documents and IRS/FBI materials were accessible post-trial. Capone's downfall generated massive public records without long-term sealing tied to co-conspirators

John Gotti (convicted 1992):

Racketeering/murder case relied heavily on Sammy Gravano's testimony. Trial evidence (tapes, surveillance) entered the public record. No evidence of entire investigative files sealed for years due to other Gambino prosecutions.
Post-conviction appeals and related mob cases proceeded with normal disclosures. FBI files later became available via FOIA/Vault releases. High-profile organized crime cases often see significant public exposure at trial.

>>1526774
She still hasn't gotten the money from the original rape, let alone all the defamation, so explain that.

>>1526961
Does the files being sealed prevent reporters from asking questions?
The blowing up of a school in Iran is under investigation, there are sealed documents related to their investigation. I still heard reporters asking questions about why the United States blew up a girls school in Iran. You're saying "everyone knows" but the standard seems completely random and based on political convenience, not political principals.

>>1527002
Did you not see the countless interviews and press conferences with Epstein victims crying about being doxed? What site are you from where this sea lion shit works?