ABC has been a victim of a “sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control” by the Trump administration, Federal Communications Commissioner Anna Gomez told Josh D’Amaro, chief executive of Disney, the network’s parent company.
The FCC under Republican Chairman Brendan Carr has been weaponized to pressure “a free and independent press and all media into submission,” Gomez wrote in a letter sent to D’Amaro on Monday and viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The lone Democratic commissioner, Gomez has been an outspoken critic of many of Carr’s actions, which she has alleged are aimed at pressuring broadcasters for political purposes.
The letter to D’Amaro comes in the wake of several investigations into Disney and ABC initiated by Carr’s FCC, including whether the talk show “The View” should continue to be granted certain exemptions as a news program.
Last week, ABC told the FCC that its probe of “The View” was an effort to chill political speech that the Trump administration doesn’t like.
Gomez told D’Amaro that these investigations and incidents, along with an FCC decision to reinstate a complaint into ABC’s moderating of a 2024 debate between then-candidate Donald Trump and opponent Kamala Harris, are “not a series of coincidental regulatory actions.”
Disney declined to comment. Carr didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The FCC is also investigating whether Disney has engaged in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that run afoul of the agency’s equal-employment-opportunity rules.
Last month, the FCC ordered eight ABC-owned television stations to file an early license-renewal request, a move typically used when the agency is preparing to fine or challenge a broadcast licensee.
That request came shortly after President Trump called for the firing of ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel after he made a joke about first lady Melania Trump.
Last year, Carr criticized remarks Kimmel made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Two large ABC affiliate owners then said they were dropping the show, leading Disney to remove Kimmel from the air for several days.
“The goal was clear: use regulatory pressure to force his removal from the air and send a message to every other broadcaster about the cost of critical coverage,” Gomez wrote.
Gomez said the administration’s attacks on the network began in earnest with a defamation lawsuit against the network and “Good Morning America” anchor George Stephanopoulos that ABC settled for $16 million, including legal fees.
“That settlement did not buy you peace,” Gomez wrote, adding “you cannot buy this Administration’s favor. For the right price, you can only borrow it. And the price always goes up.”
In her letter, Gomez pledged to use “every tool available to me as a Commissioner to shine a light on what this FCC is doing to curtail press freedom and to hold this process to account at every step.”
While Gomez is a frequent critic of Carr, it is highly unusual for a government regulator to tell a company under investigation that the probe is without merit.
The investigations, Gomez said, are unlikely to succeed but that is not the point.
“The threat is the point. As sitting Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch recently reminded us by invoking Justice Thurgood Marshall: ‘The value of a sword of Damocles is that it hangs, not that it drops,’” she wrote.
Write to Joe Flint at Joe.Flint@wsj.com
