ABC Sues Trump Television Regulator Over Threats Against Broadcast License

Disney’s ABC filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, claiming the agency’s recent review into the company is part of a “retaliatory campaign.”

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges that the Trump administration’s “campaign against ABC has been building over the course of the current Administration’s second term.” The litigation comes after the FCC issued an order in April which directed Disney’s eight owned-and-operated television stations to file their broadcast license renewals early, NBC News reported.

“It began in earnest when the Administration installed a Chairman who had promised to aggressively advance its agenda, and built steadily to the present inflection point when the Commission demanded that the Stations apply for license renewal years in advance,” the lawsuit claims.

ABC’s suit also alleges that the administration’s “threats to the Stations’ licenses are neither new nor off-the-cuff,” adding that President Donald Trump “has long criticized the content of ABC’s news coverage, and has repeatedly floated the revocation of broadcast licenses as the means of punishing ABC for its speech.”

“The Commission has demanded a review of the Stations’ licenses extraordinarily early,” ABC said in the lawsuit. “For all but two of the Stations, this early review comes before their current license terms have even reached the halfway point, and years before the Commission is statutorily authorized to grant renewal. That timing underscores the Commission’s true purpose: coercing and retaliating against a network that refuses to bow to the Administration’s demands.”