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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
__________________________________________
)
)
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Plaintiff,
)
)
v.
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)
DONALD J. TRUMP, in his official capacity
)
as President of the United States,
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Defendant.
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__________________________________________)
PEN AMERICAN CENTER, INC.

18-9433
Civil Action No. _______

COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
INTRODUCTION
1.

This complaint arises out of official acts by the President of the United States,

Donald J. Trump, intended to stifle exercise of the constitutional protections of free speech and a
free press. Through retaliatory directives to officials in his Administration and credible public
threats to use his government powers against news organizations and journalists who have
reported on his statements, actions, and policies in ways he does not welcome, the President has
violated the First Amendment and his oath to uphold the Constitution. President Trump has First
Amendment rights and is free to criticize the press vehemently, but he is not free to use the
power and authority of the United States government to punish and stifle it.
2.

President Trump has directed his threats and retaliatory actions at specific outlets

whose content and viewpoints he views as hostile. As a result, journalists who report on the
President or his Administration reasonably believe they face a credible threat of government
retaliation for carrying out the duties of their profession. President Trump has thus intentionally
hung a sword of Damocles over the heads of countless writers, journalists, and media entities,

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including members of Plaintiff PEN American Center, Inc. (hereinafter, “PEN America”). His
actions seek to accomplish indirectly what the President cannot do directly: impede professional
and investigative journalism, and silence criticism.
3.

Plaintiff seeks a specific and narrow—but important—remedy for the President’s

unconstitutional actions aimed at suppressing speech. It seeks the entry of an Order (a) declaring
that Defendant Trump’s retaliatory acts violate the First Amendment, and (b) enjoining
Defendant Trump from directing any officer, employee, agency, or other agent or instrumentality
of the United States government to take any action against any person or entity in retaliation for
speech that the President or his Administration do not like.
4.

Defendant Trump has made eminently clear his disdain for the press and the legal

protections the First Amendment affords it. He has frequently referred to journalists covering his
rallies as “disgusting” and has stated, more generally, that it is “frankly disgusting the way the
press is able to write whatever they want to write” and that “people should look into that.”
Defendant Trump has decried reporting critical of him or his Administration as “fake news” and
has repeatedly labeled journalists “the enemy of the American people,” an epithet used by Joseph
Stalin and other authoritarian and repressive rulers to denigrate and endanger their critics.
5.

These ongoing verbal attacks on the press and others exercising their own First

Amendment rights, while troubling and anti-democratic, are not the basis upon which Plaintiff
PEN America seeks relief. As disturbing as it is for President Trump to disparage publicly the
freedoms provided by the First Amendment, and as indefensible as it may be for the President to
denounce in the way he has those whose reporting he dislikes, he too is protected by the First
Amendment. His opinions about the press, however odious, cannot be the basis for legal
limitations and are not themselves the basis for this lawsuit. But Defendant Trump has done

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more than to exercise his right to denounce his critics. He has threatened to engage, and has
engaged, in conduct intended to retaliate against specific news organizations and journalists
whose content and viewpoints displease him. Through his actions, Defendant Trump has
intentionally conveyed to all writers and journalists that if he objects to their their coverage, they
may be subject to retaliation by the federal government. That conduct violates the Constitution.
6.

For example, Defendant Trump has repeatedly called for action to punish the

online retailer Amazon because Jeff Bezos, its chief shareholder and CEO, owns the Washington
Post, whose accurate coverage of his Administration the President finds objectionable. The
President’s threats of government action, alone, caused a pronounced dip in Amazon’s stock
value in July 2018. The President then followed through on his threats and issued an executive
order directing the U.S. Postal Service (“Postal Service”) to review its financial practices,
including the shipping rates it offers companies like Amazon. On information and belief, he then
personally directed U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rate the Postal
Service charges Amazon and other firms to ship packages. On October 11, 2018, the Postal
Service announced proposed rate increases, including a proposed 12-percent increase for the
Parcel Select service used by Amazon.
7.

Defendant Trump similarly has threatened and taken action to retaliate against

CNN because he objects to its coverage of him. When Defendant Trump first learned during the
2016 campaign that CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, planned to merge with AT&T, he
publicly threatened to use the Justice Department’s antitrust merger-review process to retaliate
against CNN for its news coverage. Following Defendant Trump’s election, the Justice
Department sued to block the merger, despite a long track record of not opposing vertical
mergers like the one proposed between Time Warner and AT&T. While that lawsuit did not

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succeed in the District Court, the litigation cost CNN’s parent significant resources, including
money, time, and opportunity costs. Those litigation costs continue as the President’s
Administration pursues an appeal.
8.

Defendant Trump’s use and threatened use of official authority to punish critical

reporting takes other forms as well. For example, he has threatened to take away White House
press credentials of reporters whose coverage displeases him and has threatened to challenge
NBC’s and other television stations’ broadcast licenses in retaliation for coverage he disliked. In
July 2018, the White House banned CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins from a Rose Garden press
conference for asking questions the White House deemed “inappropriate.”
9.

The President’s intent to deter criticism through credible threats of punishment by

the government is unmistakable and seeks to shape the landscape in which all coverage and
commentary about the President is carried out. His conduct is designed to intimidate not just the
specific targets of the President’s retaliatory actions and threats of action, but all who write or
speak critically about the President or his Administration, including members of Plaintiff PEN
America. Based on the President’s threats and the follow-up actions described above, journalists
reasonably perceive a credible threat of government retaliation if the President is displeased by
their reporting.
10.

Many media outlets and individual journalists, including members of Plaintiff

PEN America, have braved the President’s threats and have continued to do the reporting and
writing necessary to hold the government to account. But they must do so against the backdrop
of Defendant Trump’s credible threats of government retaliation that is intended to deter them.
The fortitude of Plaintiff and the American media in the face of these threats does not render
Defendant Trump’s actions any less calculated to chill their speech, nor less unconstitutional.

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11.

Defendant Trump’s actions infringe two of our most coveted liberties, the

freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Freedom of speech is an essential component of a
functioning democracy. Benjamin Franklin identified freedom of speech as the “principal pillar”
of a free society and the primary bulwark against tyranny. A leader with “the power to punish
for words,” he wrote, “would be armed with a weapon the most destructive and terrible.”
12.

To ensure no American leader would wield such destructive power, and because

they viewed it as vital to maintaining a democracy, our founders guaranteed freedom of the press
in our Constitution and created a court system to protect it. As the Supreme Court said in 1936,
“[t]he newspapers, magazines, and other journals of the country, it is safe to say, have shed and
continue to shed, more light on the public and business affairs of the nation than any other
instrumentality of publicity; and since informed public opinion is the most potent of all restraints
upon misgovernment, the suppression or abridgement of the publicity afforded by a free press
cannot be regarded otherwise than with grave concern.” Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297
U.S. 233, 250 (1936).
13.

Together, the First Amendment’s protections of free speech and a free press

reflect “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be
uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and
sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” New York Times Co.
v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964).
14.

It is also “well established that the Constitution protects the right to receive

information and ideas,” Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 762 (1972), and that the
government cannot “orchestrate public discussion through content-based mandates,” United
States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709, 728 (2012). Together, these protections prohibit the government

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from attempting to restrict or otherwise improperly influence the news coverage of government
activities through retaliatory acts and threats.
15.

Defendant Trump has violated these First Amendment rights through his acts that

cause reasonable journalists to believe that there are instances in which government power will
be used to retaliate against critical speech. These acts cause Plaintiff PEN America’s members
reasonably to fear that their reporting or writing may elicit governmental retaliation if the
President deems it too critical. These acts also prevent Plaintiff’s members from receiving
speech of investigative journalists, writers and commentators who operate free from the
President’s efforts to chill and intimidate.
16.

Plaintiff comes to this Court for relief because our constitutional system assigns to

the courts the power and duty to remedy such an ongoing violation of the First Amendment
rights of speakers and listeners.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
17.

This Court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331 because the claims in

this action arise under the Constitution and laws of the United States, specifically the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution.
18.

Venue is proper pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e) because Defendant is an officer

or agency of the United States and Plaintiff PEN America resides in the District.
PARTIES
19.

Plaintiff PEN America, a section 501(c)(3) organization headquartered in New

York City, is an association of writers and other literary and media professionals, including
journalists and publishers of information about the President and his Administration. Plaintiff’s
mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties

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that make it possible. PEN America’s bedrock work is long-term advocacy on behalf of
individual writers who are being punished because of their work. PEN America monitors the
government’s interactions with writers and journalists and produces informational content related
to its advocacy work.
20.

Plaintiff’s members write about, report on, and produce media content related to

American government and politics. Plaintiff’s members produce, and plan to produce in the
future, work that is held to the highest standards of accuracy, but that is often critical of the
actions of politicians and governments, including the President and his Administration. This
reporting informs the public about the workings of the government, promotes government
transparency and enables the public to hold their representatives accountable. Plaintiff’s
members also rely on information produced by a free and unchilled press to do their work.
21.

Plaintiff’s members work for a wide variety of media entities, including

organizations whose mission is to gather and report the news. Many of Plaintiff’s members work
for, contribute to, and consume the work of media organizations that have been directly
threatened by Defendant Trump for the content of their speech, including the Washington Post,
CNN, NBC, the White House Press Corp, ESPN, and Univision. Plaintiff’s membership
includes individuals who possess, or work for entities that possess, White House press
credentials and broadcast licenses.
22.

Defendant Donald J. Trump is the 45th President of the United States, a position

in which he has served since January 20, 2017.

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FACTS
A. President Trump’s Unconstitutional Acts
23.

As President, Defendant Trump exercises ultimate authority over the Executive

Branch, controlling agencies’ actions through Executive Orders and the Appointments Clause.
President Trump has repeatedly threatened to use the levers of government power that he
oversees to retaliate against journalists and media companies for the content of their coverage.
In some cases, he has followed through on those threats. Defendant Trump has thus far engaged
in at least four categories of retaliatory actions targeting unfavorable news reporting: initiating a
government review to raise postal rates; directing Department of Justice enforcement actions;
threatening to revoke broadcast licenses; and interfering with White House press access.
Government Review to Raise Postal Rates
24.

Defendant Trump has repeatedly threatened to use the U.S. Postal Service

(“Postal Service”) and its rate structure to retaliate against Jeff Bezos, the owner of the
Washington Post (also referred to as “the Post”), whose coverage he dislikes.
25.

On April 12, 2018, he followed through on his threats by signing an Executive

Order directing the Postal Service to review its rates. This Order, on information and belief, was
aimed at Bezos’s company, Amazon, and was motivated by Defendant Trump’s displeasure at
the reporting of Bezos’s other company, the Washington Post.
26.

From the beginning of his campaign for President, Defendant Trump has

repeatedly attacked the Post for its coverage of him, calling it biased, fictitious, and “a disgrace
to journalism.” In a 2016 interview, he called the Post “a political instrument” that was writing
“bad” and “wrong” stories “with no proper information,” and accused its reporters of writing a
“false” book about him. He has routinely called the Washington Post “fake news” and
personally attacked its writers.
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27.

During his presidency, when the Washington Post published unflattering stories

about the inner workings of his Administration, Defendant Trump frequently responded with
pointed denunciations of the accuracy of the Post’s work. On April 8, 2018, for example, after
the Post ran a story about John Kelly’s frustrations as Chief of Staff, Defendant Trump tweeted:
“The Washington Post is far more fiction than fact. Story after story is made up garbage - more
like a poorly written novel than good reporting. Always quoting sources (not names), many of
which do not exist. Story on John Kelly isn’t true, just another hit job!”
28.

Defendant Trump has turned his ire over the Washington Post’s coverage into a

vendetta against its owner Bezos, targeting Bezos’s main asset, Amazon, by issuing a series of
threats to take governmental action that would harm Bezos and Amazon, and which were
eventually acted upon.
29.

During his campaign, Defendant Trump repeatedly threatened future action

against Amazon, regularly tied to objections over the Post’s coverage. On information and
belief, he did this to signal to Bezos and Amazon shareholders that he could – and would – use
his official powers to adversely impact Amazon’s tax status and subject it to antitrust
enforcement. As candidate Trump put it at a rally on February 26, 2016, while referring to
Bezos and Amazon: “If I become president, oh do they have problems. They’re going to have
such problems.”
30.

In a May 12, 2016 interview, following a series of Washington Post reports that

critically scrutinized Defendant Trump’s business and financial dealings, and that later
culminated in two Washington Post reporters publishing a book, Trump Revealed, Defendant
Trump accused Bezos of “using the Washington Post for power so that the politicians in

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Washington don’t tax Amazon like they should be taxed.” He also declared that “Amazon is
getting away with murder, tax-wise.”
31.

During the same interview, Defendant Trump denigrated the Washington Post

reporters’ then-forthcoming book, Trump Revealed, calling it “all false stuff because the stories
are so wrong,” and claiming that Bezos is “worried about me” because “he’s got a huge antitrust
problem because he’s controlling so much. Amazon is controlling so much of what they’re
doing.”
32.

Once in office, Defendant Trump continued to threaten the use of governmental

power to harm Bezos and the Washington Post in retaliation for the paper’s reporting. In July
2017, Defendant Trump twice consulted billionaire investor Leon Cooperman about challenging
Amazon’s status as a monopoly. On information and belief, Defendant Trump was motivated to
challenge Amazon’s status by his animus toward the Post for its critical coverage of him and by
his desire to use his regulatory powers to influence and shape media coverage of his
Administration.
33.

On June 27, 2017, Washington Post journalist David Fahrenthold reported that the

Trump Organization had displayed a fake depiction of Trump on the cover of Time Magazine at
several of its clubs. The next day, Defendant Trump tweeted, “The #AmazonWashingtonPost,
sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should)
is FAKE NEWS!”
34.

On July 24, 2017, Defendant Trump complained on Twitter about the Washington

Post’s coverage of his Syria policy, accusing the Post of “fabricat[ing] the facts.” He then posted
a second tweet suggesting that the “Fake News Washington Post” was “being used as a lobbyist
weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly.”

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35.

On December 29, 2017, following a Washington Post story on the

Administration’s internal deliberations on how to handle “worries of a tough year ahead,” and a
satirical end-of-year piece entitled “Was 2017 the end of something or just the beginning,”
Defendant Trump tweeted that the Postal Service should be charging more to deliver Amazon’s
packages: “Why is the United States Post Office [sic], which is losing many billions of dollars a
year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon
richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!”
36.

On information and belief, Defendant Trump has since repeatedly been told by his

staff that his assertions about Amazon’s harmful impact on the Postal Service are incorrect, but
he continues to repeat them.
37.

Defendant Trump recently renewed and escalated his threats of action against

Amazon following unflattering reporting in the Washington Post detailing the damage done to
Trump’s family businesses by allegations involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Robert
Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election. Defendant Trump repeated his false claims about
costs to the Postal Service and his threats to raise Amazon’s shipping rates. Once again, he left
no doubt that his motivation was animus against the Post, again calling it a “lobbyist” and
“weapon” for Bezos.
38.

In a series of tweets from March 29, 2018 to April 3, 2018, Defendant Trump

made repeated false statements about Amazon and issued repeated threats to raise its postal
shipping rates. Over the course of these threats from President Trump, Amazon sustained a $60
billion dip in market value.
39.

On information and belief, Defendant Trump’s attacks on Amazon were

motivated by animus toward Bezos and the Washington Post on account of its coverage of him

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and his Administration. For example, in an April 13, 2018 article by Maya Kosoff, Vanity Fair
quoted White House sources as saying that President Trump “has zero respect” for the
Washington Post and wants to “[f--k] with” Bezos as a result.
40.

On April 12, 2018, Defendant Trump followed through on his retaliatory threats,

issuing an Executive Order directing a review of the Postal Service’s “unsustainable financial
path.” The order included several provisions directed at Amazon, including an order to review
the “expansion and pricing of the package delivery market.”
41.

On information and belief, President Trump had by this time repeatedly and

personally directed the Postmaster General to raise Amazon’s rates.
42.

Even during the pendency of the review, Defendant Trump continued to threaten

further action against Bezos and Amazon and linked his motivation clearly to the Washington
Post’s coverage. On July 23, 2018, immediately following reports in the Post that President
Trump was unhappy with the progress of talks with North Korea, the President tweeted that
“[t]he Amazon Washington Post has gone crazy against me ever since they lost the Internet Tax
Case in the U.S. Supreme Court,” i.e. South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. He then renewed his threats
to take antitrust action against Amazon and to raise its postal delivery rates. President Trump
tweeted “Next up is the U.S. Post Office [sic] which they use, at a fraction of real cost, as their
‘delivery boy’ for a BIG percentage of their packages. . . In my opinion the Washington Post is
nothing more than an expensive (the paper loses a fortune) lobbyist for Amazon. Is it used as
protection against antitrust claims which many feel should be brought?”
43.

On October 11, 2018, the Postal Service announced proposed rate hikes for its

services, to include rate increases of up to 12 percent for the Parcel Select service used by
Amazon. On information and belief, this action by the Postal Service would not have been taken

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but for the President’s clearly expressed desire to punish Amazon for the reporting of
the Washington Post.
DOJ Enforcement Actions
44.

Defendant Trump has repeatedly threatened Department of Justice (“DOJ”)

antitrust enforcement actions against media companies he views as unacceptably critical of him,
taking particular aim at CNN.
45.

Defendant Trump has long made known his deep-seated animus toward CNN for

the content of its reporting. He repeatedly attacks CNN on Twitter, in speeches, interviews, and
press conferences, calling it “fake news” and “garbage,” and has refused to answer questions
from CNN reporters during press conferences, calling its coverage “terrible.” On information
and belief, President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with CNN leadership in early 2017
and demanded that “20 percent of its staff” be fired for their coverage of the 2016 election.
46.

Defendant Trump has done far more than exercise the right to make known his

dislike of CNN’s reporting. At a rally during the 2016 campaign, Defendant Trump threatened
to block a proposed merger between Time Warner, CNN’s parent company, and AT&T, once he
gained control of the DOJ, and made clear his retaliatory motive for doing so. On October 22,
2016 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he denounced the AT&T–Time Warner merger, telling his
audience that CNN was part of the media “power structure” trying to suppress his votes. “AT&T
is buying Time Warner and thus CNN,” Defendant Trump said, declaring it “a deal we will not
approve in my administration.”
47.

Once in office, Defendant Trump followed through on this threat. On information

and belief, during the pendency of the AT&T–Time Warner merger review process, advisers to

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President Trump discussed using the merger approval application as “a potential point of
leverage over [CNN].”
48.

On information and belief, DOJ demanded the sale of CNN as a condition of its

approval of the merger, leading a source close to the merger process to opine that “[t]his has
become political . . . It’s all about CNN.”
49.

On October 28, 2017, Defendant Trump’s close associate, Roger Stone,

threatened CNN reporters on Twitter that if the merger were approved “the house cleaning at
CNN of human excrement like @donlemon @jaketapper & dumb[f--k] @ananavarro will be
swift.”
50.

Because AT&T and Time-Warner are not content competitors, their proposed

merger was a so-called “vertical” merger that federal government regulators have not sought to
block since the Nixon Administration. Nonetheless, on November 20, 2017, the Antitrust
Division filed a lawsuit to block the Time Warner–AT&T merger despite its decades-long
practice of permitting such vertical mergers.
51.

The lawsuit marked a stark turnabout by Makan Delrahim, the head of the DOJ’s

Antitrust Division. Before joining the Trump Administration, on October 24, 2016, Delrahim
gave an interview to Bloomberg, during which he said that he saw no problem with the Time
Warner–AT&T merger. After working in the White House Counsel’s Office with President
Trump, however, and upon taking charge of the Antitrust Division, Delrahim authorized the
lawsuit.
52.

On June 12, 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, overseeing the federal

antitrust trial, found against the government and ruled that the AT&T-Time Warner merger
should go through without conditions. In rejecting the government’s case, Judge Leon

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questioned why it had ever been brought, given the overwhelming precedent permitting similar
mergers and noted the “staggering” cost of the litigation to both the defendants and the
government. Following the verdict, Time Warner’s Executive Vice President Gary Ginsberg
said the government’s case was “political in its motivation.”
53.

On July 12, 2018, DOJ appealed the District Court’s decision and the case is

currently pending before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
54.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with the United States government

deciding to shift policy to pursue antitrust enforcement actions in cases of vertical mergers, the
President may not cause such enforcement actions to be brought in retaliation for protected
speech.
55.

Defendant Trump’s threats to use the DOJ to influence the flow of information to

the public is not limited to CNN. On August 28, 2018, he complained, via Twitter, that:
Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting
of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me &
others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent.
Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of . . .
results on ‘Trump News’ are from National Left-Wing Media, very
dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and
hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we
can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!
56.

Hours later, White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow, standing outside the

White House, threatened that the Trump Administration is “taking a look” at imposing
regulations on Google.
57.

On September 5, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced his intention to

convene a meeting of Republican state attorneys general to discuss a possible federal
investigation of whether Google, Facebook, and other social media companies are violating
antitrust and free speech laws.

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58.

On September 22, 2018, the White House leaked a draft Executive Order that

would instruct federal law enforcement and antitrust agencies to open investigations into social
media companies. This leak was intended to, and did, have a negative market impact on these
companies. The intent of leaking this information was to show these companies and other
speakers the President dislikes that his White House has the power to significantly injure them
with a simple leak if it dislikes their content. The intent of leaking this information was also to
incentivize investors to pressure these companies to modify their content to be more to the liking
of the President in order to avoid retaliatory actions that could impact the investors’ bottom line.
59.

Some of the intended targets of this “warning shot” are the owners of companies

at which Plaintiff members are employed or for whom they write. These actions were intended
to chill the content created by Plaintiff’s members and have cast a chill that Plaintiff’s members
must overcome in order to do their jobs.
60.

Of course, the President may seek the adoption of otherwise constitutional

legislation affecting or relating to social media, but he may not seek to regulate social media for
the purpose of retaliating against it or to otherwise affect the content of what appears on it.
Threats to Revoke Broadcast Licenses
61.

Defendant Trump has also threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses of media

entities that he views as critics.
62.

On October 11, 2017, he lashed out at NBC on Twitter for its reporting on

statements the President had made about nuclear weapons at a Pentagon meeting. “Fake
@NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a “tenfold” increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN!”

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63.

Minutes later, Defendant Trump followed that tweet with another threatening

NBC’s broadcast license. “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at
what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!”
64.

Later the same day, Defendant Trump broadened his threat to more outlets:

“Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and,
if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!”
65.

Although networks do not hold federal licenses, their individual affiliates do.

Those licenses are subject to regulation by the Federal Communications Commission.
Revocation of a federal license is a death sentence for a broadcast station.
Actions to Limit the Access of White House Reporters
66.

Defendant Trump and his Administration have also acted to selectively deny

journalist critics access to information from the White House.
67.

Defendant Trump’s behavior in denying journalist critics access to information

from the White House and about his Administration is a pattern dating back to his campaign.
Prior to the election, on August 25, 2015, Defendant Trump had Jorge Ramos, Univision’s lead
anchor, removed from a press conference after Ramos tried to ask Defendant Trump a question
about immigration policy.
68.

While on the campaign trail, Defendant Trump barred reporters from several news

organizations, including the Washington Post, from obtaining press credentials at his rallies,
news conferences, and other events.
69.

As President, Defendant Trump has continued to threaten journalists whose

coverage or questioning he found unfavorable to him or his Administration with revoking their
access to official Administration and White House events.

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70.

On information and belief, Defendant Trump has repeatedly directed White

House staff to ban reporters critical of his Administration from covering official events or to take
away their press credentials. This included reporters from the Washington Post, CNN, and NBC
News, and Defendant has specifically told his staff to consider blacklisting Jim Acosta of CNN
and April Ryan of the American Urban Radio Networks in retaliation for their coverage, of
which he disapproves.
71.

On February 24, 2017, Defendant Trump’s then-White House Press Secretary

Sean Spicer held an off-camera question-and-answer session before only an “expanded pool” of
journalists in Spicer’s office rather than the press briefing room. The White House denied
requests for access to the session from The New York Times, Politico, CNN, The Guardian,
BBC, and others, based on its disapproval of their coverage.
72.

On December 12, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders

told CNN’s Jim Acosta that she would block him from having future access if he attempted
during President Trump’s bill signing to ask the President a question about one of his tweets
attacking Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
73.

On May 9, 2018, Defendant Trump threatened to revoke the credentials of all

reporters whose coverage he finds negative.
74.

Eventually, the President’s staff acted on these directives. On July 25, 2018,

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Communications Director Bill Shine
barred CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins from a Rose Garden press conference because Collins had
earlier asked the President questions that the White House deemed “inappropriate.”

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75.

The Defendant’s intent in having staff bar Collins from this event was to make

clear to all other reporters that they too might be barred from events or have their credentials
revoked if they produced coverage critical of the President or his Administration.
B. The Harm to Plaintiff’s Members from Defendant Trump’s Unconstitutional Acts
76.

Defendant Trump’s credible threats and retaliatory directives to use government

power to retaliate against critics improperly seek to suppress speech and influence the content of
news reporting. Defendant’s use of the power and machinery of government to punish his media
critics creates an atmosphere in which journalists must work under the threat of government
retaliation. This environment, underscored by Defendant Trump’s campaign of intimidation
against critical reporting, casts a chill on speech that – even if braved and overcome by diligent
and courageous reporters – constitutes an ongoing First Amendment violation.
77.

Plaintiff’s members cover and write about President Trump and his

Administration and intend to continue to do so. In doing their work, they also rely on the
reporting of others. But journalists write about the President and his Administration today with a
reasonable recognition of a credible threat that Defendant Trump will use the levers of
government power to punish them or their employers for critical speech. The First Amendment
protects the press from having to work under such conditions.
78.

Members of Plaintiff PEN America work for, or with, the Washington Post, Time

Warner, CNN, NBC, the White House press corps, and other entities against whom Defendant
Trump has used, or threatened to use, the machinery of government to retaliate for or suppress
their critical speech. Plaintiff’s members are directly harmed by Defendant Trump’s actions
even if they or their employers have not specifically been threatened with retaliatory action. In

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order to do their jobs and speak, write and listen freely, they are forced to surmount the chill cast
by the President’s conduct.
79.

Defendant Trump’s threats and retaliatory actions directed at the Washington

Post, Amazon, Time Warner, CNN, NBC, the White House press corps, and other news
organizations and journalists are designed to unduly influence the content and tenor of news
reporting on the President and his Administration, and to control public discussion.
80.

Defendant Trump has also directed his ire towards countless other journalists and

media outlets. Prior to assuming office, he singled out Megyn Kelly of Fox News for repeated
criticism and attack. After assuming office, and after ESPN reporter Jemele Hill called him a
“white supremacist,” Defendant Trump called for her to be fired. Hill was eventually suspended
by ESPN and later left the network. White House staff reportedly collected dossiers of negative
information about April Ryan and others for the purpose of intimidating them. And Ryan has
spoken out about an atmosphere that she has described as placing “targets” on journalists who
are viewed as critics of the Administration, subjecting them to online and other harassment.
While these verbal attacks and other actions are not the subject of this legal action, they have
created a dynamic in which no reporter or media outlet knows if they will also be the subject of
Defendant’s attacks and whether that attack will be accompanied by unlawful retaliatory action
by the federal government.
81.

Many of the reporters and outlets that have been the direct targets of Defendant

Trump’s attacks and retaliatory actions are, or work for, sizable companies. Although the First
Amendment protects them from having to do so, they have significant resources with which to
defend themselves and vindicate their rights. But for smaller outlets, independent media,
freelancers, or other more vulnerable populations of writers who do not have those same

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resources, continuing to write and report freely in the face of Defendant’s threats of retaliatory
government action can require overcoming even greater risks.
82.

Even if some news organizations and reporters directly threatened by Defendant

Trump continue to cover him and his Administration exactly as they always have, the
Defendant’s actions cast a chill and create a reasonable risk that some will not.
83.

Plaintiff’s members are also listeners and recipients of speech, both from other

members, as well as from other press and media organizations. Such speech gives Plaintiff’s
members access to “social, political, esthetic, moral, and other ideas and experiences,” and
allows Plaintiff’s members to engage in discussion and debate about matters of public interest.
84.

Plaintiff’s members rely on uncensored and unchilled coverage from news outlets

that is free from government-imposed chill in their own work, and they rely upon a media
environment that is safeguarded from intentional efforts to deter critical coverage through the
credible threat of government retaliation.
85.

Defendant Trump’s credible threats of government retaliation, and his retaliatory

uses of government power, harm Plaintiff’s members because his actions jeopardize their access
to information and their right to receive information. Again, it is Defendant Trump’s intentional
interference and actions with the aim of exerting improper influence that creates the First
Amendment harm.

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FIRST CLAIM
Violation of the First Amendment—Freedoms of Speech and the Press
(Declaratory and Injunctive Relief)
86.

Plaintiff incorporates by reference the preceding paragraphs as if fully set forth

87.

The First Amendment prohibits government officials from taking punitive acts

herein.

against disfavored journalists and media entities in retaliation for their speech.
88.

Defendant Trump does not intend his threats to invoke government regulatory

powers against journalists and media entities to be empty, hollow threats.
89.

Defendant Trump does not intend for the officers implementing policy in his

Administration to ignore these threats.
90.

Defendant Trump expects the officers implementing policy in his Administration

to carry out his will.
91.

Defendant Trump intends the writers, journalists and media outlets he has

attacked to think twice before writing critically of him or his Administration.
92.

Defendant Trump intends the writers, journalists and media outlets he has

attacked to conform their coverage to what he would consider “fair.”
93.

Defendant Trump unlawfully violated the First Amendment by using and

threatening to use the power and machinery of the federal government to punish and intimidate
perceived press critics through:
(a)

issuing an Executive Order to review raising postal rates;

(b)

conducting law enforcement investigations and initiating enforcement
actions;

(c)

threatening to rescind broadcast licenses; and

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(d)
94.

restricting access and threatening to revoke credentials for members of the
White House press corps.

Defendant Trump’s credible threats and retaliatory actions violate the First

Amendment because they are content- and viewpoint-based restrictions on speech and cast a
chill on a reasonable person of ordinary firmness to deter them from engaging in speech critical
of the President.
95.

Defendant Trump’s credible threats and retaliatory actions violate the First

Amendment because they are content- and viewpoint-based restrictions on speech and Plaintiff’s
members own speech has in fact been chilled because they are forced to do their work in the face
of a credible threat of retaliation.
96.

Defendant Trump’s infringements of the First Amendment are subject to strict

scrutiny, and there is no legitimate compelling government interest that justifies Defendant’s
threats and retaliatory actions. And even there were such an interest, Defendant’s actions are not
the least restrictive means of achieving it.
97.

Plaintiff’s members work for or with the specific press entities that Defendant has

used or threatened to use government retaliatory actions to punish and were within the scope of
the intended target of Defendant Trump’s threats as writers who write about the President and his
Administration, regardless of whether they were specifically named in threats. As a result of
Defendant’s unconstitutional actions, Plaintiff’s members have suffered and continue to suffer
harm caused by the President’s deliberate efforts to chill protected speech, which warrants
immediate relief.

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SECOND CLAIM
Violation of the First Amendment—Right to Receive Information
(Declaratory and Injunctive Relief)
98.

Plaintiff incorporates by reference the preceding paragraphs as if fully set forth

99.

The First Amendment protects the right to receive information and ideas. It

herein.

prohibits the government from arbitrarily or vindictively limiting the stock of information from
which members of the public may draw. The public, including Plaintiff PEN America’s
members, has a right to receive information from press and media organizations free from undue
government influence.
100.

Defendant Trump unlawfully violated the First Amendment by using and

threatening to use the power and machinery of the federal government to punish and intimidate:

101.

(a)

The Washington Post and Amazon;

(b)

CNN and Time Warner;

(c)

NBC;

(d)

The White House press corps; and

(e)

Other entities, publishers, and writers who cover the President and his
Administration.

Defendant Trump’s credible threats and retaliatory actions violate Plaintiff’s First

Amendment rights. Those unlawful actions are content- and viewpoint-based restrictions on
speech intended to unduly affect the content and tenor of the news and to orchestrate public
discussion. Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s members rely on each of the sources threatened or punished
by the President to receive information. The President’s unconstitutional actions violate the right

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of Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s members to receive information free from undue government
influence.
102.

Defendant’s infringements of the First Amendment are subject to strict scrutiny,

and there is no legitimate, compelling government interest that justifies Defendant’s prevention
of Plaintiff’s members from receiving information and ideas. Even if there were such an interest,
Defendant’s actions are not the least restrictive means of achieving it.
103.

As a result of Defendant’s unconstitutional actions, Plaintiff’s members have

suffered and continue to suffer harm, which warrants immediate relief.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE Plaintiff requests that this Court:
1.

Enter judgment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2201(a) declaring that Defendant Donald

J. Trump violated the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States when he used his
Presidential powers or the power of the federal government with intent to retaliate against or
otherwise constrain speech critical of him or his Administration.
2.

Enjoin Defendant Donald J. Trump from directing or ordering any officer,

employee, agency, or other agent or instrumentality of the United States government to take any
action against any person or entity with intent to retaliate against, intimidate, or otherwise
constrain speech critical of him or his Administration.
3.

Award Plaintiff its costs, including attorneys’ fees, and enter such other and

further relief as the Court deems just and proper.

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Dated: October 16, 2018

Respectfully submitted,
THE PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT, INC. and
MEDIA FREEDOM & INFORMATION ACCESS
CLINIC

David A. Schulz (DS-3180)
MEDIA FREEDOM AND INFORMATION
ACCESS CLINIC
FLOYD ABRAMS INSTITUTE
FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Yale Law School
1675 Broadway, 19th Floor
New York, NY 10019-5820
Tel: (212) 850-6103
Fax: (212) 223-1942
david.schulz@yale.edu
John Langford (JL-2367)
MEDIA FREEDOM AND INFORMATION
ACCESS CLINIC
FLOYD ABRAMS INSTITUTE
FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Yale Law School
P.O. Box 208215
New Haven, CT 06520
Telephone: (203) 436-5831
Facsimile: (203) 432-3034
john.langford@yale.edu

By: /s/ Kristy Parker___________________
Kristy Parker (pro hac vice filed herewith)
THE PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT, INC.
2020 Pennsylvania Avenue., NW, #163
Washington, DC 20006
Telephone: (202) 849-9307
Facsimile: (929) 777-8428
kristy.parker@protectdemocracy.org
Ian Bassin (N.Y. Reg. No. 4683439)
THE PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT, INC.
222 Broadway, 19th Floor
New York, NY 10038
Telephone: (202) 599-0466
ian.bassin@protectdemocracy.org
Laurence M. Schwartztol (LS-1978)
Justin Florence (pro hac vice forthcoming)
THE PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT, INC.
10 Ware Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Telephone: (202) 599-0466
larry.schwartztol@protectdemocracy.org
justin.florence@protectdemocracy.org
Steven A. Hirsch, consultant with
THE PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT, INC.
(pro hac vice forthcoming)
633 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111-1809
Telephone: (415) 676-2286
sahirsch2@gmail.com

Counsel for Plaintiff

26