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A Sustained Attack against the Free Press
Journalists
in Trump’s
crosshairs
p eter C erto
How can you
tell an authoritar-
ian when you see
one? We know the
20th century hall-
marks — brown
shirts, street ral-
lies, and the like.
But there’s an autocratic attitude,
some historians suggest, that can
easily be traced across the centu-
ries.
To put it simply, New York Uni-
versity professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat
told Democracy Now recently,
“authoritarians believe that in-
stitutions should serve them, and
not the other way around.”
Just ask Jim Comey — who,
as recently as October, might’ve
been Donald Trump’s favorite
person.
Less than two weeks before
the November vote, the now-for-
mer FBI director announced that
he was reopening an investiga-
tion into one of Trump’s favor-
ite subjects: Hillary Clinton’s
emails. For that, Trump praised
by
Comey’s “guts,” while Clinton
now blames Comey’s announce-
ment for costing her the election.
Trump seemed happy to accept
that help. But in a twist, Comey
also found the guts to investigate
whether Trump accepted help
from the Russians, too. For
that, he was fired this month.
“This Russia thing” was “a
made-up story,” Trump com-
plained by way of explana-
tion.
All
that’s
explosive
enough. Even more so was
a subsequent revelation: That
Trump had called on Comey to
“let go” of an investigation into
Michael Flynn, Trump’s national
security adviser who’d been oust-
ed for lying about his own con-
tacts with the Russians.
That little bombshell is now
headline news all over. But bur-
ied in the New York Times story
about that memo was another,
less noticed bomblet: “Alone
in the Oval Office,” the paper
reported, Trump said “Comey
should consider putting reporters
in prison for publishing classified
information.”
That’s right: In addition to ask-
ing Comey to stop investigating
his friend Flynn, the president
called on the FBI director to ar-
rest journalists who published
things Trump found unflattering.
Perhaps including stories like this
one.
Was this an impulsive request?
Not likely. In fact, the administra-
tion appears to have been laying
the groundwork for this for some
time.
Take WikiLeaks. Trump once
said he “loved” the group for
publishing leaked Clinton cam-
paign emails. But then it earned
the White House’s enmity by
also publishing details about CIA
hacking.
Trump’s CIA director has since
described WikiLeaks as “a hos-
tile foreign intelligence service”
and warned that “America’s First
Amendment freedoms” will not
“shield them from justice.” Attor-
ney General Jeff Sessions is now
trying to bring a case against the
group’s founder, Julian Assange.
While leaking classified infor-
mation may be a crime, publish-
ing it most certainly isn’t — that’s
been protected by the Supreme
Court since the early 1970s. In
this respect, any charges brought
against WikiLeaks could equally
be brought against virtually every
newspaper and TV station in the
country.
Which, by all appearances,
is the idea. When CNN asked if
the WikiLeaks case could lead
to charges against other outlets,
Sessions didn’t bother to deny it.
Of course, this is all under
the auspices of a candidate who
called journalists “lying, disgust-
ing people” and even wondered
aloud about whether he’d kill
them as president. (He ultimate-
ly said no, but seemed reluctant.)
And it’s the same White House
that wants to sue journalists
whose reporting it disputes.
But consider that Michael S.
Schmidt, the Times reporter who
broke the Comey memo story,
happens to be the very same per-
son who reported on Hillary Clin-
ton’s use of a private email serv-
er. Has anyone benefited more
from that reporting than Trump?
It all depends on the headlines
that come next, apparently.
They’ve surely been spotty
about it, but in a democracy pub-
lic institutions — from law en-
forcement to the free press — are
supposed to serve the public, not
the president. If Trump can’t ac-
cept that, maybe he’s the one who
should be fired.
Peter Certo is the editorial
manager of the Institute for Poli-
cy Studies and the editor of Oth-
erWords.org.