ABC Lawyer: 'We Sit With Our Head on the Guillotine'

ABC says it's already pulling its political punches, and it blames Washington for the chill. In federal court Tuesday, an attorney for the network said its news division is softening midterm-election coverage and scrutinizing decisions like whether to air President Trump's speeches because the Federal Communications Commission has yanked ABC station licenses into an early review and the network is worried about angering the administration, Politico reports. "We sit with our head on the guillotine," lawyer Beth Wilkinson told Judge Loren AliKhan, arguing that FCC Chair Brendan Carr is effectively dangling a "corporate death penalty" over eight major-market stations. "Our editorial decisions are being affected right now," she said.

Carr says the move stems from a dispute over documents in an investigation of Disney's diversity hiring practices, not ABC's journalism. The FCC ordered the early review in April, soon after Trump complained about a joke from Jimmy Kimmel, whose show airs on ABC. The network filed a lawsuit in August, seeking to block the FCC from taking further action and from trying to coerce it to change its "exercise of editorial discretion," the AP reports.

• Wilkinson argued that, in a "blatant" violation of the Constitution, ABC is being targeted over its content. "Trump has made his stance clear over and over again," Wilkinson said. "What he says is because of that content, because of that speech, ABC should lose its license." Asked by the judge what harm ABC had suffered, she said, "The irreparable injury is the chill, and the threat of retaliation for First Amendment speech and editorial decisions ABC makes every day."

The Justice Department wants the case tossed, saying ABC should first appeal through the FCC. AliKhan, a Joe Biden appointee, signaled doubts about the government's rationale and pressed how a hiring probe squares with Trump and Carr's repeated attacks on ABC, NBC, and CBS programming. She asked both sides to submit additional arguments by mid-October. The showdown is emerging as a test of how far regulators can go before broadcasters curb coverage to avoid political blowback—an outcome that has alarmed media advocates and, notably, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, who has warned against turning regulators into "speech police," Politico reports.