Latest news with #TheodoreBoutrous
Reuters
27-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
NPR turns to Bush-era conservative, media advocate for Trump lawsuit
May 27 (Reuters) - National Public Radio has hired a pair of prominent lawyers at law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, including one-time Republican federal appeals court nominee Miguel Estrada, for its lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of illegally cutting public broadcasting funds. NPR and a group of public radio stations sued the administration in federal district court in Washington on Tuesday, accusing it of trampling their rights to speech and association under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. President Donald Trump earlier this month issued an executive order to cut federal funding for NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service. Estrada, who has argued 24 cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush in 2001 to the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but Senate Democrats did not allow him to advance. He is working with Gibson Dunn's Theodore Boutrous Jr, who has represented media outlets for years in First Amendment fights. Boutrous was a lead attorney for CNN in 2018 in a lawsuit accusing the first Trump administration of unlawfully revoking a reporter's press credentials. Boutrous in a statement said Trump's executive action against NPR was "blatantly unconstitutional" and violated the rights of the organization and its member stations. The administration has accused, opens new tab NPR and the PBS of bias and called for an end to public funding of news media. In a statement, a White House spokesperson said Trump was exercising his lawful power to limit funding to NPR and PBS, which is not a plaintiff. Other Trump targets have also turned to lawyers with conservative credentials to sue the administration. William Burck, who served as a lawyer in the George W. Bush White House, is representing Harvard University in lawsuits against the administration. Former Bush-era U.S. solicitor Paul Clement is representing WilmerHale in its lawsuit challenging Trump's executive order against the law firm. Gibson Dunn is also representing, opens new tab the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and other clients in a pair of immigration-related lawsuits against the Trump administration. The case is National Public Radio Inc et al v. Trump et al, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 1:25-cv-01674. For NPR: Miguel Estrada, Theodore Boutrous Jr and Katie Townsend of Gibson Dunn For Aspen Public Radio: Steven Zansberg of Zansberg Beylkin For defendants: No appearance yet Read more: From Harvard to Musk, law firm Quinn Emanuel juggles Trump's friends and foes Law firms hire former Tesla lawyer and top conservative litigator for Trump fight Obama's top Supreme Court lawyer files lawsuit over Trump funding freeze Neal Katyal, Milbank join team suing Trump over bid to oust Democratic official
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NPR sues Trump over executive order to cut funding
National Public Radio filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the Trump administration on Tuesday, alleging that President Trump's attempt to defund NPR is a 'clear violation of the Constitution.' Several NPR member stations from Colorado joined the national network in filing the suit, highlighting the local impacts of taxpayer-funded media. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, DC, says Trump's maneuvers against NPR violate both 'the expressed will of Congress and the First Amendment's bedrock guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association.' Moreover, it 'threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information,' the lawsuit states. Trump targeted both NPR and its television counterpart, PBS, in an executive order on May 1. The president accused the public media outfits of bias and said the Corporation for Public Broadcasting must stop funding them. But the funds for public radio and TV have been allocated by Congress for decades — most recently in a bill that Trump signed into law earlier this spring. Furthermore, the corporation, CPB for short, is a private nonprofit corporation that is set up to be free of presidential interference. CPB has filed its own lawsuit against the president's attempt to fire three of its board members. PBS has also been preparing to take legal action but has not yet filed suit. Each year, the CPB disburses $535 million in taxpayer funds to public radio and TV stations nationwide and to producers of educational and cultural programming. Stations, in turn, provide free and universal access to news, emergency alerts and a wide array of programming. In Trump's first term, he repeatedly tried to strip all funding from PBS and NPR, but Congress allocated the funds anyway. In Trump's second term, he is trying new ways to shut down the public broadcasters, while charging that the networks 'spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.'' Public media executives say the White House is grossly mischaracterizing what NPR and PBS do. Theodore Boutrous, one of the attorneys representing NPR in the suit, said Tuesday that listeners are the ultimate victims of Trump's actions. 'By seeking to halt federal funding for NPR, the executive order harms not only NPR and its member stations, but also the tens of millions of Americans across the country who rely on them for news and cultural programming, and vital emergency information,' Boutrous said.
