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A federal judge has halted the Missouri attorney general‘s investigation of the progressive watchdog group Media Matters for America over its report last year that major sponsors’ advertisements were appearing next to extremist content on Elon Musk‘s X.com.
As advertisers left the platform, Musk sued Media Matters, while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey served civil investigative demands on the watchdog group. Media Matters sued to block the investigation, citing the First Amendment.
In granting a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta wrote that “Missouri’s interest in enforcing its consumer protection laws must give way when a state actor uses them to retaliate against a media organization for protected speech.” Bailey also sought a civil penalty against the group.
“The court does not discard lightly the presumption of regularity generally afforded to
prosecutorial decision-making,” the judge wrote, as he cited court precedents. “‘But it falls on the judiciary to ensure that the First Amendment is not reduced to a parchment promise.’ And ‘the most heinous act in which a democratic government can engage is to use its law enforcement machinery for political ends.’ That apparently is what has occurred here.”
Read the Elon Musk Media Matters decision.
Earlier this year, Mehta also granted an injunction to halt Paxton’s investigation, also on First Amendment grounds.
As Mehta noted in his opinion, after Media Matters published its piece on November 16, an ally to Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, “sent a tweet implicitly calling upon ‘conservative’ state attorneys general to investigate Media Matters’ reporting on X. Within hours, Defendant Bailey responded that ‘[his] team is looking into the matter.'”
Musk, meanwhile, threatened a “thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters” for what he said was a “fraudulent attack on our company.” He accused Media Matters of “manipulating X’s algorithm to artificially force placement of the ads next to extremist content.”
Musk filed a lawsuit against the group, but the advertiser exodus also followed criticism of his endorsement of a user’s antisemitic post. He later told advertisers to “go f— yourself,” and recently filed a lawsuit against sponsors, claiming they engaged in a boycott that violated antitrust laws.
In a statement, Media Matters President and CEO Angelo Carusone said, “A federal judge has clearly seen this coordinated effort by state attorneys general for what it is – sucking up to Elon Musk and abusing the power of their offices to intimidate researchers and stifle accurate reporting by Musk’s critics. Andrew Bailey was one of those AGs that took up the call and he was defeated.”
A representative for Bailey did not immediately return a request for comment.
Mehta referred to Bailey’s own comments in concluding that his investigation was politically motivated. He cited Bailey’s comments that Media Matters were “progressive tyrants masquerading as [a] news outlet[].” The judge also pointed to an interview Bailey gave to Donald Trump Jr. in June, when he “said out loud the true purpose of his investigation.”
Per Mehta, Bailey said, “It’s a new front in the war against the First Amendment . . . We’ve seen a direct assault by the deep state and President Biden’s Administration.”
The judge wrote, “Although tough talk is not foreign to the law enforcement arena, such overt political messaging is atypical. A reasonable factfinder is likely to interpret Defendants’ words as targeting Media Matters not for legitimate law enforcement purposes but instead for its protected First Amendment activities.”
