Special Investigations

Press Freedom Defense Fund

Nonprofit Coalition Asks Courts to Prevent Coercive Federal Investigation Tactics

Seventeen organizations filed an amicus brief calling out pretextual federal investigations and arguing for judicial oversight.

Seventeen nonprofit organizations, led by The Intercept’s Press Freedom Defense Fund, filed an amicus brief today urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to prevent the Federal Trade Commission from conducting an retaliatory investigation into Media Matters for America, brought after Media Matters published critical reporting about allies of the Trump administration.

The brief, authored by Albert Sellars LLP, notes that this sort of coercive tactic — where a federal agency will launch a pretextual investigation, keep it open as a way to coerce compliance, and resist any effort to have a court review the lawfulness of the agency’s actions — has become a troublingly common form of government intimidation under the current administration. From the Justice Department to the Federal Communications Commission, court intervention has been one of the few tools that organizations have to prevent federal overreach. The amicus brief asks the appellate court to uphold a preliminary injunction. Without judicial remedy, such investigations are an acute danger to the nonprofit organizations that Americans rely on for information on matters of public concern. The brief argues that courts must intervene to prevent such investigations from chilling coverage of issues that might be adverse to those currently in power. 

“Nonprofit organizations must be aggressively vigilant to protect First Amendment rights in the face of a federal government’s........

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