The FCC asks a court to throw out ABC's First Amendment challenge to its licence review
The Federal Communications Commission filed a motion asking a federal court to dismiss ABC's First Amendment lawsuit over the early renewal review of its station licences, arguing the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction and that ABC has not established a causal link between its protected speech and the early renewal proceedings.
What happened
The motion was submitted by Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. ABC sued the commission the previous month, alleging it was waging an extraordinary assault on the broadcaster's free-speech rights by threatening to pull the licences of its eight owned-and-operated local television stations. The review being challenged began with an order of the FCC's Media Bureau on 28 April requiring Disney to file licence renewals for all of its licensed TV stations within thirty days. In its filing the commission said FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced the investigation into Disney and ABC's DEI practices long before making any of the statements about The View, Jimmy Kimmel, or the president's July 2026 public address on which the plaintiffs focus their narrative in the case.
The early reviews were ordered by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in April even though the stations' licence renewals were not scheduled to be considered before October 2028, and the commission had not ordered an early review in more than 50 years before April; Carr has said he has not decided whether to refer Disney's licences for a hearing. The filing, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the proceeding is only about "allegations of unlawful discrimination" related to Disney's diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, and asks the court to dismiss the suit entirely or, failing that, to deny Disney's request for a preliminary injunction that would halt the licence review while the litigation runs. The commission alleged that Disney's responses to its investigative inquiries "were deficient and nonresponsive", which it said necessitated the order for an early licence review, and argued that success for Disney would hobble its "efforts to investigate and resolve serious allegations that Disney has engaged in unlawful discrimination". Disney filed the suit on 18 August.
Why it matters
A licence review is leverage whether or not it ends in a revocation, and the question ABC put to a district court is whether that leverage can be tested for retaliation before the review concludes. The government's answer is that it cannot be tested there — that Congress routed review of such orders to the appeals courts, and that framing the claim as retaliation does not change where it belongs. That is a position about the reviewability of licensing pressure, which is the part of this mechanism a broadcaster can otherwise contest.