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There is good reason to be concerned. President Donald Trump has laid bare his enmity toward the press, which he has repeatedly\u00a0branded<\/a>\u00a0the \u201cenemy of the people\u201d and sought to delegitimize at every opportunity. He has\u00a0filed<\/a>\u00a0spurious lawsuits against news organizations,\u00a0endangered<\/a>\u00a0reporters whose job it is to cover him at public events, and\u00a0threatened<\/a>\u00a0to revoke the broadcast licenses of major networks.<\/p>\n And now that the U.S. Supreme Court has bestowed upon him immunity for whatever abuses he may wish to commit, it is highly likely that Trump and his henchpeople will weaponize the Justice Department into a cudgel with which to bash the media. Move over,\u00a0Meet the Press<\/em>, it\u2019s time for\u00a0Beat the Press<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE?\u201d Trump raged in a typically hysterical\u00a0Truth Social post<\/a>\u00a0in 2023. He urged that the left-leaning network MSNBC, in particular, be investigated for its \u201cCountry Threatening Treason.\u201d<\/p>\n Kash Patel, whom Trump wants to install as the director of the FBI, has declared his intention to turn the power of the state against Trump\u2019s perceived enemies, explicitly including journalists. \u201cWe will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,\u201d Patel\u00a0vowed<\/a>\u00a0in a 2023 podcast hosted by Trump adviser Steve Bannon. \u201cYes, we\u2019re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections\u2014we\u2019re going to come after you. Whether it\u2019s criminally or civilly, we\u2019ll figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n In a book published in 2022, Patel\u00a0drew up a list<\/a>\u00a0of sixty targets of retribution, from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr. While no journalists made the cut, Bannon has given his assurance that they will be included.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there will be a massive investigation,\u201d Bannon\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0The Bulwark<\/em>\u00a0in an interview just before Christmas, referring to delusional claims that the FBI was somehow behind the attack on the Capitol by Trump\u2019s supporters on January 6, 2021. Bannon alleged a \u201cvast criminal conspiracy\u201d on the part of the media and former federal officials who appear on networks including MSNBC. \u201cI think there will be big investigations into all these people, I just do.\u201d<\/p>\n Or, as Bannon\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0at the New York Young Republican Club Gala in mid-December, the media \u201cneed to learn what populist national power is, on the receiving end. I mean investigations, trials, and their incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n Besides seeking to lock up reporters, Team Trump has other tools of repression to use against the Fourth Estate, such as habitual threats of legal action.<\/p>\n Trump has a pending\u00a0libel lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the board that awards Pulitzer Prizes for issuing a statement defending its decision to bestow this top honor on\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0for their coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. (Nothing in the papers\u2019 coverage or the Pulitzer board\u2019s statement was incorrect.) He\u2019s also\u00a0suing<\/a>\u00a0The Des Moines Register<\/em>\u00a0for running a poll of Iowa voters shortly before the 2024 election that showed him trailing then Vice President Kamala Harris, calling it \u201cbrazen election interference.\u201d (This makes absolutely no sense, since skewing this poll result, which no one did, would serve mainly to energize Trump supporters to turn out, which is what happened.)<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s clear that Trump is waging war on the press,\u201d Samantha Barbas, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, told\u00a0The New York\u00a0Times<\/em>. \u201cTrump and his lawyers are going to use any legal claim that they think has a chance of sticking. They\u2019ll cast a wide net to carry out this vendetta.\u201d<\/p>\n While lawsuits like these almost never succeed in court, they are costly to defend against and thus constitute a kind of tax on the practice of journalism. (Trump\u2019s costs are less onerous, not just because he\u2019s rich but also because he often\u00a0finds ways<\/a>\u00a0to make his followers pay his legal bills.)<\/p>\n In October, Trump\u00a0sued<\/a>\u00a0CBS News, claiming it engaged in \u201cdeceptive manipulation of news\u201d in the way it edited a\u00a060 Minutes<\/em>\u00a0interview with Harris. The suit seeks $10 billion in damages. It\u2019s a ridiculous lawsuit that stands no chance of success but could end up costing the network millions of dollars in legal fees and perhaps make it more wary of causing Trump further offense.<\/p>\n Such corrupt motivations appear to have prevailed in a defamation suit brought by Trump against ABC News last March, when one of its anchors, George Stephanopoulos, said Trump had been found \u201cliable for rape\u201d in a civil case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, to whom two juries\u00a0awarded<\/a>\u00a0$88 million in damages. This statement was only slightly incorrect\u2014Trump was found liable for sexual abuse under New York State law, but the judge\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0that it was for conduct that met the commonly understood definition of rape.<\/p>\n This case clearly does not meet the high standard for defamation of a public official set by the Supreme Court in its 1964 ruling in\u00a0New York Times Company v. Sullivan<\/a><\/em>, because there was no evidence that Stephanopoulos made his statement with \u201cactual malice,\u201d knowing it to be false. But in December, ABC News threw in the towel,\u00a0agreeing<\/a>\u00a0to apologize and give $15 million to Trump\u2019s future presidential foundation and museum.<\/p>\n It was a cowardly capitulation for which the network has been rightly\u00a0criticized<\/a>. But in terms of preserving press freedom, it actually may have been a strategically prudent thing to do, which is frightening in and of itself. Besides avoiding a pricey and protracted legal fight, ABC\u2019s surrender denied the Supreme Court\u2019s conservative supermajority the chance to revisit and revoke the standard set in\u00a0Sullivan, as conservatives have been itching to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n But libel law is not the only weapon Trump may have at his disposal in his second term. There\u2019s also a very real possibility that the Republican-controlled Congress will empower him to shut down a huge array of journalistic outlets\u2014those, like\u00a0The Progressive<\/em>, that operate as nonprofits.<\/p>\n On November 21, 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill, in a\u00a0vote<\/a>\u00a0of 219-184, that would allow federal authorities to revoke the tax exemption for nonprofit groups, including news organizations, that some government bureaucrat thinks has contributed to terrorism, even accidentally.<\/p>\n The bill,\u00a0H.R. 9495<\/a>, titled the \u201cStop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act,\u201d did not receive a vote in the previous Senate, then under Democratic control. But it\u2019s sure to return in the new 119th Congress. It would give the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, a Trump appointee, unilateral authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of any group deemed a \u201cterrorist supporting organization.\u201d Officials will not have to provide evidence or even explain why this designation has been made, and the proposed legislation provides no meaningful avenue of appeal.<\/p>\n The bill has drawn concerted opposition from multiple quarters. Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union,\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0its passage \u201cwould hand the incoming Trump Administration a dangerous new tool it could use to stifle free speech, target political opponents, and punish disfavored groups.\u201d The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, in a\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0cosigned by the Associated Press, the Center for Investigative Reporting\u00a0(Reveal<\/em>),\u00a0Mother Jones<\/em>, and\u00a0ProPublica<\/em>, said the bill would let the executive branch \u201ctarget perceived critics,\u201d something administrations of both parties have long sought. The letter questioned the bill\u2019s necessity, noting that \u201cmaterial support for terrorist organizations is already and unambiguously a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n A majority of House members voted for the bill anyway, with fifteen Democrats and all but one Republican in favor.<\/p>\n