NC GOP Threatens ProPublica: Drop This Story Or We’ll Call Trump To Punish You

Free Speech

from the censorial-thugs dept

The faux “party of free speech” strikes again. For years, the MAGA GOP has insisted that it is the true “party of free” speech even as all evidence suggests this administration is the most censorial and the most dismissive of the First Amendment in modern history. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again we see the Trump administration engaging in blatant and obvious speech suppression.

So it’s no surprise that Republicans all across the country are now responding to any criticism or any reporting on their illegal activities as something they can threaten to suppress. ProPublica recently had an eye-opening deep dive into North Carolina’s Supreme Court chief justice, Paul Newby, who seems to view his job not as ensuring justice is served, but in bending every aspect of the North Carolina judicial system to favor and help Republicans.

It’s a long article, but you get the gist of it here:

Few beyond North Carolina’s borders grasp the outsize role Newby, 70, has played in transforming the state’s top court from a relatively harmonious judicial backwater to a front-line partisan battleground since his election in 2004.

Under North Carolina’s constitution, Supreme Court justices are charged with upholding the independence and impartiality of the courts, applying laws fairly and ensuring all citizens get treated equally.

Yet for years, his critics charge, Newby has worked to erode barriers to politicization.

He pushed to make judicial elections in North Carolina — once a national leader in minimizing political influence on judges — explicitly partisan and to get rid of public financing, leaving candidates more dependent on dark money. Since Newby’s allies in the legislature shepherded through laws enacting those changes, judicial campaigns have become vicious, high-dollar gunfights that have produced an increasingly polarized court dominated by hard-right conservatives. 

As chief justice, he and courts under him have consistently backed initiatives by Republican lawmakers to strip power away from North Carolina’s governor, thwarting the will of voters who have chosen Democrats to lead the state since 2016. He’s also used his extensive executive authority to transform the court system according to his political views, such as by doing away with diversity initiatives. Under his leadership, some liberal and LGBTQ+ employees have been replaced with conservatives. A devout Christian and church leader, he speaks openly about how his faith has shaped his jurisprudence and administration of the courts.

As is happening all too often in American politics, what we’re seeing is the politicization of just about everything. That’s a shame for many reasons—namely that politics is supposed to be just about making the case for getting elected, but after that you should govern (and handle judicial matters) in an unbiased manner.

But the really striking thing in the piece is how the Republican Party tried to threaten ProPublica to drop the story by pulling a “if you don’t, we’ll tell Daddy Trump to punish you.”

When ProPublica emailed questions to Newby’s daughter, the North Carolina Republican Party’s communications director, Matt Mercer, responded, writing that ProPublica was waging a “jihad” against “NC Republicans,” which would “not be met with dignifying any comments whatsoever.” 

“I’m sure you’re aware of our connections with the Trump Administration and I’m sure they would be interested in this matter,” Mercer said in his email. “I would strongly suggest dropping this story.” 

It’s the Brendan Carr shakedown all over again. Just non-stop, thuggish, mafioso-style bullying. “If you don’t shut up, we’ll find a way to punish you.”

It remains truly astounding that Trump and the MAGA folks spent years claiming to be the party of free speech, when basically every few days yet another one of these stories pops up. Directly calling out that if ProPublica continues to report on a very powerful, extremely politically-motivated judge, they’re going to call up Daddy Trump and have him punish you?

Pure censorial thuggishness.

But it also reveals something crucial: the MAGA GOP knows that this kind of journalism works. When ProPublica exposes how North Carolina’s chief justice has systematically corrupted the state’s courts to favor Republicans, that exposure is genuinely dangerous to their project. The threat itself is the tell—they wouldn’t bother threatening reporters if this kind of reporting didn’t matter.

And that’s the real story here. Not that they’re hypocrites about free speech (we knew that), but that their entire governance model now depends on preventing the public from learning what they’re actually doing. They have no actual policy positions that can survive scrutiny, and what they’re doing is so ridiculously unpopular that their only remaining move is threatening anyone who documents it.

Which means: keep documenting it.

Filed Under: donald trump, journalism, matt mercer, north carolina, paul newby, threats
Companies: propublica