Trumps War on Free Speech Continues After Journalist Arrested

After one journalist was raided by the Trump regime, another journalist was arrested for the crime of journalism.

The fascist Trump regime isn’t exactly slowing down in the war on free speech. Already, we’ve noted a handful of the many many efforts to silence those who would dare disagree with the fascism that has seized control of the US. We’ve seen talk show hosts get forcibly silenced, threats to science journals, suing pollsters, disappearing people, the crackdown on museums, deporting Europeans for thought crimes, lawsuits against pro-Trump publications, criminalizing lawyers who would dare represent his political opponents, and even going to the extreme measure of murdering Americans in cold blood for the crime of existing in a non-Trump supporting area.

With the insanity of Trump constantly gambling with World War III by either invading other countries or threatening to invade, it’s quite difficult to keep up with the assault on free speech Trump is leading. For instance, earlier this month, the Trump regime got the FBI to raid a Washington Post reporter. Civil and digital rights organizations, for reasons that should be painfully obvious, condemned the move as they pointed out that it is a direct assault on freedom of the press and freedom of expression. From the EFF:

Government invasion of a reporter’s home, and seizure of journalistic materials, is exactly the kind of abuse of power the First Amendment is designed to prevent. It represents the most extreme form of press intimidation.

Yet, that’s what happened on Wednesday morning to Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, when the FBI searched her Virginia home and took her phone, two laptops, and a Garmin watch.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has joined 30 other press freedom and civil liberties organizations in condemning the FBI’s actions against Natanson. The First Amendment exists precisely to prevent the government from using its powers to punish or deter reporting on matters of public interest—including coverage of leaked or sensitive information. Searches like this threaten not only journalists, but the public’s right to know what its government is doing.

I absolutely agree. This is an outrageous act. In a normal world, this would be a career ending move by any president, but since the current regime is a Republican, they generally get a free press when it comes to moves that are clearly oppressive in nature. Not only that, there’s also the aspect of the never ending criming the president has been doing and the general spinelessness from other politicians to put a stop to this madness for various reasons.

Now, one of the big controversial aspects of this is the fact that the Washington Post owner, Jeff Bezos, has long been doing everything he can to suck up to the American dictator for fun and profit. As a result, Bezos, at the time of when the scandal was blowing up, was saying nothing to defend the work of his own journalists. From The New Republic:

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has stayed noticeably silent after one of the newspaper’s reporters, Hannah Natanson, had her home searched by federal agents Wednesday—and the Post’s staff isn’t happy.

Status.news reports that several of the publication’s employees aren’t happy with their owner’s muted reaction to the raid. One called it “nauseating and irresponsible to have our owner remain silent given this unprecedented event,” while another said they were “disappointed” but “not surprised.”

“If there was a moment to stand up for our journalistic values, this would be it,” a third staffer said.

The newspaper’s executive editor, Matt Murray, forcefully condemned the search, which resulted in a phone and a smartwatch being seized from Natanson’s home.

“This extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work,” Murray wrote in an internal memo. “The Washington Post has a long history of zealous support for robust press freedoms. The entire institution stands by those freedoms and our work.”

Of course, all of this happened a few weeks ago. As a result, this is an eternity ago in the pure insanity that is Trumps world. We’re on to the next massive scandal that shows Trumps relentless war on free speech. Recently, former CNN reporter, Don Lemon, was arrested for the crime of reporting while black. From ABC:

Former CNN journalist Don Lemon and eight others have been charged in connection with an incident in which anti-ICE protesters disrupted a service at a Minnesota church, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Friday.

Lemon and others are charged with conspiracy against rights of religious freedom and an attempt to injure while exercising religious freedom in the two-count indictment.

The incident unfolded on Jan. 18, when protesters entered Cities Church in St. Paul. The protesters said one of the pastors is the acting field director of the St. Paul ICE field office. Protesters were heard chanting “Justice for Renee Good” inside the church.

It is worth noting that Lemon was at the scene asking questions. Since there were disturbing connections between ICE and the priest that was present, that, unsurprisingly, got a lot of people at the scene upset.

None of this is particularly surprising these days. Journalists, and people in general, get arrested and punished for thought crimes all the time in the US these days. After all, actual freedom is merely a suggestion as opposed to the rule. In fact, the latest efforts to arrest the journalist was so questionable, even the courts rejected going after him in the first place. From TechDirt:

Last week, a federal magistrate judge told the DOJ it could not arrest journalist Don Lemon. The DOJ appealed and lost that appeal too. The legal system said no.

So the DOJ arrested him anyway.

On January 18th, protesters interrupted services at a Minnesota church after discovering its pastor leads a nearby ICE field office. Journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort followed the protesters through the church’s publicly accessible doors to cover the story. They streamed the protest. They asked questions. They committed acts of journalism.

And by this morning they were both in federal custody (though since released).

Organizers of the protest, to the extent they had any real organizational control, were arrested. Pictures of at least one of those arrests were run through one AI platform or another to make those arrested appear to be in more distress than they actually had been.

When that didn’t quench the thirst for cruelty and fascism of this particular regime, Pam Bondi’s DOJ then attempted to go after the journalists themselves. For what crime? Anyone’s guess, honestly. The DOJ attempted to get arrest warrants for Fort and Lemon from the courts, which told them to fuck all the way off. The DOJ then attempted to appeal the rejection without informing the lower court, and attempted to get the Appeals Court to hide the request under seal. That wasn’t successful either.

But rather than admitting that violating the First Amendment rights of journalists was a total stinker of an endeavor, the DOJ convened a grand jury, apparently got an indictment, and then both Lemon and Fort were arrested at Bondi’s direction.

Local Minnesota reporter Georgia Fort, along with former CNN journalist Don Lemon, were arrested by federal agents following their coverage of a protest at a church in St. Paul. Don Lemon’s attorney said he was “taken by federal agents” on the evening of Thursday, Jan. 29, while he was in Los Angeles covering the Grammy Awards. Local independent journalist Georgia Fort was also arrested at her home by federal agents.

A statement from the Center of Broadcast Journalism called the arrest “An assault on press and on the 1st Amendment.”

“Georgia Fort, a trusted and cherished journalist in Minnesota, was arrested in the early morning hours for doing her job by covering a pop-up protest at Cities Church in St. Paul,” the statement read. “It is an outrage that a vetted and credentialed member of the media would be in any way prosecuted for doing her appointed duty in covering news. If the federal government can come for Georgia no member of the supposed ‘free’ press is safe.”

So, even the courts knew this vindictive move by the Trump regime stunk to high heaven. As with all things Trump, though, either the courts agree with everything you say or you just ignore the courts and do what you want anyway. After all, the rule of law does not apply to the Trump regime in the first place, so why bother pretending it does when things get inconvenient?

At any rate, the war on free speech is most definitely continuing. It’s a plain as day effort to oppress Americans. Whether officers are shooing people in the head, disappearing people and sending them to concentration camps, or otherwise cracking down on people, the whole point is to ensure that anyone daring to question the Trump regime will face the full brunt of the gestapo. One can only hope things don’t get worse, but it’s hard to have any hope for anything with the US any more.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.