ndrosen

A few days ago, the execrable Senator Joshua Hawley wrote to the Federal Elections Commission, demanding that they investigate Twitter and Facebook for “censoring” the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s alleged emails, and thus making an in-kind contribution to the Biden campaign. If I were editing a newspaper, I would surely report it as very probably a forgery by Rudy Giuliani, Stephen Bannon, and perhaps other conspirators; but never mind that for now. One thing which this illustrates is that the Supreme Court made the right decision in Citizens United. The government’s position, admitted by the then Solicitor General, was that a movie, book, or presumably newspaper article could be treated as an in-kind campaign contribution, which would have made freedom of the press largely a dead letter, at least regarding news and opinions that pertained to candidates for public office.

If the Supreme Court had ruled that way, as the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wanted it to, Hawley would have a good point (which, in the real world, he does not), and the FEC and other authorities would be able to go after Facebook, Twitter, and various newspapers for making unlawful corporate in-kind contributions to the Biden campaign. On the other hand, the The New York Post could likewise be prosecuted for making an unlawful contribution to the Trump campaign (I presume it’s owned by a corporation).

Does Hawley not realize that if the law treated news reporting and editorial judgement as unlawful campaign contributions, the law could be weaponized against his side, as well as the opposition? Does he think that the Trumpublicans would establish a permanent ascendancy, and cause the law to be used always and only against their opponents? Or did he only write the letter as a publicity stunt, to stir up anger and hatred against Big Tech and opposition news sources?