Last week, President-elect Donald Trump promised to elevate Brendan Carr from commissioner to chair of the Federal Communications Commission, calling Carr a “warrior for free speech.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

In a cringeworthy campaign to appeal to Trump, Carr has seized on Trump’s threats to penalize broadcasters for fact-checking him or giving airtime to his political opponents. Following through on these threats would almost certainly violate the First Amendment. Yet even the threat alone is chilling — a government official vowing to punish the president’s opponents for exercising their fundamental rights.

Carr has shown that he is willing to break with longstanding and bipartisan FCC precedent to punish Trump’s detractors. The FCC traditionally avoids regulating broadcast radio and television content except in extremely narrow circumstances, such as indecency. During a September hearing in the House of Representatives, Carr declined to speak out against Trump’s suggestion that ABC should lose its broadcast licenses because two of its journalists fact-checked him during his debate........

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