Despite the long weekend, this week promises to be a busy one in the courts.
All Rise News will list some of the cases to look out for in the newsletter below — and give a preview of the next phase of No Kings.
In documenting the ongoing assault on press freedom, it’s easy to get distracted by the Donald Trump show.
This discourse views Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico through the lens of his grievances and hostilities toward those news organizations, media personalities or the so-called “fake news” writ large.
But Trump’s attacks on U.S. media have always been multifaceted and systematic, involving a mix of regulatory pressure, revocation of access, meritless defamation lawsuits, intimidation and prosecution. Allies like Larry Ellison receive the carrot of media consolidation approval, and perceived adversaries like Media Matters and Don Lemon get the stick of targeting by captured federal agencies. FCC attack dog Brendan Carr turns comedians like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel into proxies to antagonize and pressure their respective networks, and federal authorities repeatedly raid the homes of reporters for national newspapers.
In each of these examples, the news cycle is dominated by Trump’s grievances or friendly relationship with the relevant media property, icon, or story he wanted to suppress. But the focus on Trump’s latest moods, insults or targets obscures the bigger picture: He wants to systematically pressure, shape, intimidate, and influence the news media in the United States.
The next chapter
On Saturday, The New York Times revealed the next chapter of Trump’s attempted media intimidation: an investigation into whether ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox’s decision to suspend White House press pool coverage in protest to the ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico violated antitrust law.
It’s not so much a legal theory as a cudgel seemingly dreamed up from the fever swamps of the MAGA right — in particular, right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation’s chief of advocacy Seth Stern called that theory “nonsense.”
“Trump may view the presidency as a business venture, but news outlets’ standing up for their constitutional rights has nothing to do with antitrust law, no matter what Laura Loomer says,” Stern said in a statement.
Weeks ago, Loomer, an influencer with no legal background, floated the idea of that White House press pool boycott constituted an antitrust violation. She also absurdly suggested that the alleged violation wasn’t being enforced because a “Democrat named Stanley Woodward” leads the DOJ’s antitrust division.
Woodward, the third top figure in the Trump Justice Department, is hardly a liberal Trojan Horse inside MAGA’s fortress. He represented Trump’s main co-defendant in the classified documents case: Trump’s so-called “body man” Walt Nauta — along with several other key witnesses like Kash Patel, ex-Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich, and then-Mar-a-Lago IT manager Yuscil Taveras in the grand jury investigation. Trump’s political action committees compensated Woodward handsomely for his efforts, paying him at least $1.4 million between 2021 and 2024, according to public filings.
It hasn’t been confirmed that Loomer’s pressure led to the antitrust investigation, but this conspiracy theorist’s influence over Trump has become so well-established that it’s entered the political lexicon. A Trump ally who has been fired, ousted or politically damaged because of an attack by this right-wing influencer has been “Loomer-ed.”
Former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, who led the team that brought Ghislaine Maxwell to justice, said in a federal lawsuit that this happened to her.
‘Telling the press how much he missed them’
Palace intrigue aside, the Freedom of the Press Foundation explained why Loomer’s legal theory is bunk.
“Depriving Trump of the attention he craves is not a competitive harm and in any case, antitrust law has long recognized First Amendment exceptions even when there is anticompetitive impact,” Stern said. “Even more bizarre than the administration’s legal theory is that after all his ‘fake news’ rhetoric, Trump is weaponizing the DOJ to pressure the networks he calls the ‘enemy of the people’ to stay at the White House. It’s a weird way of telling the press how much he missed them.”
Whether or not Loomer sparked the investigation, The New York Times confirmed that Woodward is pursuing it, and the Trump Justice Department’s spokesperson cited the Sherman Act as a basis.
The news media, rightly, viewed the boycott as basic solidarity.
Major broadcasters from every political background, from ABC to Fox, pulled the plug on the White House press pool because they recognized that giving any U.S. president the power to ban one of their peers could backfire on them once the political winds shift.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico already obtained a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump White House from revoking their credentials, and Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly is likely to extend it into a preliminary injunction before Tuesday. Those legal victories, however, can only go so far.
Even after the media coalition’s initial victory, Trump continues to restrict press access where court orders don’t specifically prohibit him from doing so. This is what makes media solidarity so dangerous to Trump. A federal judge’s rulings can be scrutinized by an army of lawyers for loopholes.
A free press working together to fight censorship, on the other hand, cannot be Loomer-ed.
All Rise News previews the week ahead in the courts and civic engagement in the listings below.
