Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Here’s what we’re focused on this week, as officials across America continue their attacks on the free press.

Administration must release memos on abduction of op-ed writer

Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims the authority to unilaterally declare students who protest the Israel-Gaza war antisemites and terrorism supporters in order to kick them out of the country. 

So when even Rubio’s State Department doubts the government has grounds to deport a student — especially an anti-war student from the Middle East — the administration’s position must be exceptionally weak. In the case of Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, it is. According to The Washington Post, internal government memos admit that the only “evidence” against her was her co-authoring an op-ed criticizing the war and that, to state the obvious, this evidence is legally insufficient to justify deportation. 

The administration needs to make these memos public. Read more here.

Journalist targeted by Trump 1.0 discusses Trump 2.0

When The Associated Press didn’t bow to President Donald Trump’s demand to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” he barred the news service from events in the Oval Office and on Air Force One. And when a judge deemed that decision unconstitutional, he spiked the permanent press pool slot for wire services entirely.

This (un)constitutional experiment started in his first term, when he revoked the credentials of individual journalists he disliked, including Brian Karem, a former White House correspondent who covered Trump for Playboy.

Karem spoke about that experience and today’s press restrictions in a webinar hosted by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) last week. He was joined by Caitlin Vogus, senior adviser at FPF, and Stephanie Sugars, who regularly reports on issues of press access to the White House as senior reporter for the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project of FPF. You can watch and read about the conversation here.

Investigating Medicaid fraud through public records 

Our series on local journalists who use public-records-based reporting to make a difference continues with a profile of Hannah Bassett, who helped expose a deadly Medicaid fraud scheme targeting Native American communities in Arizona. 

“In Arizona, the public records statute allows for the state agencies to claim an exemption if a record is in the state’s interest to withhold,” Bassett explained. “It’s understandable that some information coming out might not be in an agency’s interest, but that doesn’t mean it’s not in the public’s interest.”

Read more about Bassett and her reporting here.

Streisand wouldn’t let the U.S. government rain on Ellsberg’s parade

Happy birthday to Barbra Streisand, whose 1973 fundraiser kept our co-founder Daniel Ellsberg’s legal fight alive long enough for him to win.

“Indirectly, that ability to keep the trial going and his case getting kicked led to the whole uncovering of the Watergate scandal, which led to the downfall of Nixon, which led to him not dropping nuclear weapons on Vietnam,” documentarian Paul Jay told the Hollywood Reporter after Ellsberg died in 2023. 

She kept Ellsberg out of jail for leaking the Pentagon Papers; now we’re continuing his fight to defend whistleblowers.

What we’re reading

Keep Texas free speech strong. Leave anti-SLAPP laws alone (Houston Chronicle). Two bills before the Texas Legislature would undermine critical protections against frivolous lawsuits by the powerful to censor their critics. Lawmakers need to listen to the bipartisan backlash and reject the bills.

Judge declines AP challenge to new White House press pool policy, but says time will tell whether wire service still gets “second class treatment” (Deadline). Any judge willing to put blinders on to presume this administration is acting in “good faith” is unfit for this moment, and probably any moment. The one thing the administration has been transparent about is its bad-faith motives for retaliating against the Associated Press.

Police officers who joined Jan. 6 rally ask Supreme Court for anonymity (The Washington Post). It sounds like the requester could just copy the officers’ brief on why their identities shouldn’t be disclosed and recaption it as a brief on why their identities should be disclosed. The First Amendment does not protect public officials from being embarrassed by their unpopular opinions. 

FCC chair threatens Comcast licenses for alleged ‘news distortion’ (U.S. Press Freedom Tracker). Legally speaking, the idea of punishing reporting critical of the president’s policies as outside the “public interest” is laughable. But unfortunately we have an FCC chair who traded in his law books for a Trump lapel pin.

As in DC, a fight breaks out in Washington state over who gets access to lawmakers (Investigate West). We told Investigate West that “Now that there are so many independent journalists out there, politicians are taking it upon themselves to be the judge of who is and isn’t a journalist.”

Here’s how to share sensitive leaks with the press.