The American network ABC, part of the group The Walt Disney Company, has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission of the United States (FCC, for its initials in English). The company accuses the regulatory body of irregularly ordering the early renewal of its eight broadcasting licenses, alleging direct pressures from the Government and a frontal attack on press freedom.
In the complaint, ABC argues that the administration of Donald Trump has used the FCC as a tool to punish the network for the content of its programming. "Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has launched a retaliation campaign against ABC for one reason only: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts," states the complaint.
According to the document, this offensive would have materialized in a series of attacks against the network's programs and against specific figures, including the popular host Jimmy Kimmel. Trump himself would have demanded Kimmel's firing after his jokes about the First Lady, Melania Trump, a few months ago, an episode that, according to the lawsuit, would have led to the use of the FCC to exercise retaliation by requiring the early renewal of the licenses.
The situation has been described by FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez as "a sustained and coordinated campaign of censorship and control, carried out through the instrumentalization of the FCC's authority as a federal regulatory body and aimed at pressuring the free and independent press and all media to submit," as stated in the text presented to the courts.
The regulator ordered ABC last April to file the renewal applications for its licenses within a maximum period of 30 days, just one day after Trump's statements about Kimmel. The network claims that the order came when the permits were still not close to expiring and without the usual time margin to process the documentation, a process that, it argues, can take months.
ABC also emphasizes that "it had never required simultaneous early renewal applications from a group of broadcasters belonging to the same broadcasting chain, much less from broadcasters with a track record of public service and award-winning journalism like these," the network has indicated, insisting on the exceptional nature of the measure.