America’s courts keep defending the First Amendment as Trump tries to silence critics

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

The American courts keep defending the First Amendment despite President Donald Trump’s best efforts to crack down on free speech and the free press.

That’s a glass-half-full assessment of the media environment after a pair of judges ruled against Trump this week.

Many other examples have emerged in recent months. Judges have scolded the Trump administration for violating the First Amendment rights of ICE critics ; for silencing the Voice of America network; and for sending secret subpoenas to news organizations.

A judge in Oregon has even blocked the administration from enforcing a rule against noisy protests outside federal buildings, essentially finding that loud speech is still free speech.

Last month Reuters counted a total of 75 federal rulings since Trump’s second inauguration finding that his administration had “infringed on First Amendment rights including freedoms of speech, religion, and the press.”

The administration has pushed back in some, though not every, instance.

This week, in Iowa, district judge Scott Beattie tossed out Trump’s highly unusual lawsuit against pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register and the Register’s parent company USA Today Co. Beattie found that the “Iowa Poll and its reporting are fully protected political speech.”

A few hours later, in Washington, federal judge Timothy Kelly rejected Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico and ordered the White House to restore access “immediately.” Though the Trump administration appeared to defy the ruling for several hours, journalists from the three affected news outlets are now back at work.

Media lawyers expect the administration to continue targeting disfavored news outlets. In the White House ban case, Kelly’s emergency order is only in effect for two weeks while a broader legal battle plays out . In the Iowa case, Trump’s legal team has vowed to appeal.

Still, as Adam Steinbaugh of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression wrote on X, the dual rulings amounted to a striking setback for the president.

“Between the press ban and Selzer/Des Moines Register, the leader of the free world lost in two separate legal cases over his efforts to suppress ‘fake news.’ In the span of eight hours,” Steinbaugh wrote.

Free speech advocates have blasted the president for betraying his 2025 inauguration speech promises to “stop all government censorship” and “bring back free speech to America.”

Several of the most prominent free-speech battles of Trump’s second term have centered on his administration’s efforts to detain and deport foreign-born students and activists over their pro-Palestinian advocacy . Judges have ordered some released from detention, though some legal battles continue.

Trump has also followed through on some of his threats to sue news outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the BBC. Courts have repeatedly viewed his defamation lawsuits skeptically, though he has been given numerous chances to refile claims and try again.

Judges in Minnesota have also signaled concern about the Trump Justice Department’s pursuit of journalists who covered a controversial demonstration inside a church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The Justice Department charged Don Lemon and Georgia Fort with interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshippers. Both journalists are fighting the charges and accusing the government of vindictive prosecution.

A federal magistrate judge rejected the Justice Department’s initial attempt to bring the charges, raising questions about how prosecutors were able to secure grand jury indictments.

Last month another Minnesota judge, Laura Provinzino, took the unusual step of demanding to see the grand jury materials relating to Lemon and Fort, suggesting she is probing whether there are grounds to dismiss the case. Provinzino did not say she had already found evidence of any misconduct.

In a motion to dismiss the case filed last month, Lemon’s lawyers wrote that “the government should not be permitted to use criminal prosecutions to chill journalism disfavored by the president.”

Similar concerns were raised over the summer when the Justice Department issued subpoenas to several New York Times reporters amid a leak investigation. The Times fought the subpoenas in court, and a judge criticized the government’s sloppy legal work. The Justice Department withdrew the subpoenas .

Numerous free-speech cases are pending in the courts, including Disney/ABC’s lawsuit charging the FCC with violating the First Amendment, and The Times’ lawsuit over the Pentagon’s press access restrictions.

First Amendment groups and media executives expect the tests will keep coming.

“Trump is always testing, testing,” an executive at one of CNN’s network rivals said, invoking that famous line from “Jurassic Park” about the velociraptors “testing the fences for the weaknesses, systematically. They remember.”

“He’s probing to see what he can get away with,” the source remarked not long after Trump said he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico last Friday.

Major news outlets responded with an unusual show of solidarity.

“We thought it was important — and I was in touch with the other news organizations — to find a way to make a unified action against the White House,” Matt Murray, the executive editor of The Washington Post, said at the Texas Tribune Festival on Thursday.

“It’s important media organizations act together at this moment,” Murray added.

Law professor and commentator Harry Litman cheered what he called “collective resistance” in a column about the media ban case.

“We always have to anticipate the prospect that a feckless and reflexively defiant White House will inject heart attacks into the legal system,” Litman wrote . “But if the media hangs tough and the courts stay faithful to the law, we can continue to ride out the storm.”

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

尽管唐纳德·特朗普总统竭尽全力打压言论自由和新闻自由，美国法院仍然坚持捍卫宪法第一修正案。

这是对媒体环境的一种乐观评价，此前两名法官本周做出了对特朗普不利的裁决。

近几个月来，还出现了许多其他例子。法官们谴责特朗普政府侵犯了移民及海关执法局（ICE）批评者的第一修正案权利；压制了美国之音；并向新闻机构发出秘密传票。

俄勒冈州的一名法官甚至阻止了政府执行一项禁止在联邦大楼外进行喧闹抗议的规定，实质上认定大声说话仍然是言论自由。

上个月，路透社统计了自特朗普第二次就职以来共有 75 项联邦裁决认定其政府“侵犯了包括言论自由、宗教自由和新闻自由在内的第一修正案权利”。

政府在某些情况下进行了反击，但并非所有情况都是如此。

本周，在爱荷华州，地区法官斯科特·比蒂驳回了特朗普针对民调专家 J·安·塞尔泽、她的民调公司、《得梅因纪事报》及其母公司《今日美国》公司提起的极其罕见的诉讼。比蒂认为，“爱荷华州民调及其报道是完全受保护的政治言论”。

几个小时后，在华盛顿，联邦法官蒂莫西·凯利驳回了特朗普对CNN、MS NOW和Politico的禁令，并命令白宫“立即”恢复其访问权限。尽管特朗普政府似乎在几个小时内无视了这一裁决，但受影响的三家新闻机构的记者现在已经重返工作岗位。

媒体律师预计，政府将继续打压不受欢迎的新闻媒体。在白宫禁令案中，凯利的紧急命令仅生效两周，一场更广泛的法律战仍在进行中。在爱荷华州案件中，特朗普的法律团队已誓言上诉。

不过，正如个人权利与表达基金会的亚当·斯坦鲍在 X 上所写的那样，这两项裁决对总统来说是一个显著的挫败。

斯坦鲍写道：“从新闻禁令到塞尔泽/《得梅因纪事报》事件，这位自由世界的领袖在两起不同的法律诉讼中败诉，而这两起诉讼都是因为他试图压制‘假新闻’。这一切都发生在短短八小时内。”

言论自由倡导者猛烈抨击总统背弃了他在 2025 年就职演说中“停止一切政府审查”和“将言论自由带回美国”的承诺。

特朗普第二任期内几场最引人瞩目的言论自由之争，都围绕着他的政府试图拘留和驱逐支持巴勒斯坦的外国学生和活动人士展开。法官已下令释放部分被拘留者，但一些法律诉讼仍在继续。

特朗普也兑现了他的一些威胁，起诉了《华尔街日报》、《纽约时报》和英国广播公司（BBC）等新闻媒体。尽管法院多次给予他重新提起诉讼的机会，但始终对他提出的诽谤诉讼持怀疑态度。

明尼苏达州的法官们也对特朗普司法部追究报道明尼苏达州圣保罗市一座教堂内发生的争议性示威活动的记者表示担忧。

美国司法部指控唐·莱蒙和乔治亚·福特干涉宗教信徒受宪法第一修正案保护的权利。两位记者均对指控提出抗辩，并指责政府出于报复而提起诉讼。

一名联邦地方法官驳回了司法部最初提出的指控，这引发了人们对检察官如何获得大陪审团起诉的质疑。

上个月，明尼苏达州另一位法官劳拉·普罗文齐诺采取了不同寻常的举措，要求查看与莱蒙和福特案相关的大陪审团材料，这表明她正在调查是否存在驳回此案的理由。普罗文齐诺并未表示她已经发现任何不当行为的证据。

在上个月提交的驳回此案的动议中，莱蒙的律师写道：“不应允许政府利用刑事诉讼来压制总统不喜欢的媒体报道。”

今年夏天，司法部在一次泄密调查中向几名《纽约时报》记者发出传票，当时也引发了类似的担忧。《纽约时报》在法庭上对传票提出异议，一位法官批评了政府草率的法律工作。最终，司法部撤回了传票。

目前法院正在审理多起言论自由案件，包括迪士尼/ABC 起诉联邦通信委员会违反第一修正案的诉讼，以及《纽约时报》就五角大楼限制新闻发布会一事提起的诉讼。

拥护宪法第一修正案的团体和媒体高管预计，此类测试还会继续进行。

“特朗普总是在试探、试探，”CNN一家竞争对手电视台的高管说道，他引用了电影《侏罗纪公园》中关于迅猛龙的著名台词：“迅猛龙会系统地测试围栏的弱点。它们会记住的。”

“他正在试探自己能逃脱多少惩罚，”这位消息人士在特朗普上周五宣布封禁 CNN、MS NOW 和 Politico 后不久评论道。

各大新闻媒体罕见地表现出了团结一致的态度。

《华盛顿邮报》执行主编马特·默里周四在德克萨斯论坛节上表示：“我们认为，找到一种方法，对白宫采取统一行动，这一点非常重要——我也与其他新闻机构保持联系。”

“此时此刻，媒体机构团结一致行动至关重要，”默里补充道。

法学教授兼评论员哈里·利特曼在一篇关于媒体禁令案件的专栏文章中，对所谓的“集体抵抗”表示赞赏。

利特曼写道：“我们必须时刻警惕，一个软弱无能、惯于对抗的白宫可能会给司法系统带来灾难性的后果。但如果媒体坚持立场，法院忠于法律，我们就能继续渡过难关。”