ABC lawyers accuse Trump’s FCC of punishing network for political reasons

Lawyers representing an ABC station have accused the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of punishing the network for political purposes in a strongly worded attack on the Trump-controlled commission’s investigation into the top-rated talkshow, The View. In a legal motion filed on Thursday, KTRK-TV, a Houston-based local television station owned by ABC, pushed back strongly against the FCC investigation, accusing the purportedly independent agency of taking actions that “threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly”. Back in February, Brendan Carr, the FCC chair, confirmed to the Guardian that the agency had opened an enforcement action into ABC over The View, looking at whether it had violated equal time rules by featuring a US Senate candidate from Texas, James Talarico, without affording the same platform to his campaign rivals. KTRK-TV and ABC confirmed that it was still under the impression that the show, which is part of the network’s news division, qualified for an exemption to the equal time rules because it operated as a “bonafide” news interview program, something Carr has challenged. …