slate - Trumps War on the Press Has Always Been Real
His attacks on the “media elite” may have seemed like political theater. We finally know better.
By Will Oremus
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/05/trump_s_war_on_the_press_has_always_been_real.html
It was hard for anyone to know, in the course of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, which of his pledges and threats to take seriously. Shortly after winning the election, he made it clear he would not attempt to prosecute Hillary Clinton, suggesting his “lock her up” rhetoric had been largely theater. On the other hand, one of his first major moves as president was to implement a travel ban that looked a lot like the Muslim ban he had called for on the trail. That punctured the argument, memorably advanced by Salena Zito in the Atlantic last September, that Trump’s more outrageous claims were not to be taken literally.
Right up there with Hillary Clinton and immigrants in Candidate Trump’s trinity of bêtes noires was the political press, aka the “media elite.” (It was only after his election that they became the “fake news media.“) At various points in his campaign, he emitted ominous noises about his plans for cracking down on press freedom, such as his February 2016 pledge to “open up libel laws” so that he could more easily win suits against news organizations when they write “hit pieces.” A year later, as president, he declared the news media “the enemy of the American people.” He added that he had directed the Department of Justice to open a crimininal investigation into the leaks that had allowed journalists a window into the early doings of his administration, including the fireable offenses of his first national security advisor, Michael Flynn. Putting two and two together, Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan wondered then if Trump might go after journalists as well as leakers. “Some knowledgeable lawyers and academics say it’s unlikely,” she reported, suggesting that Trump might just be rallying the base. But she didn’t sound entirely reassured.
More recently, some commentators have questioned the sincerity of Trump’s attacks on the press, suggesting that his outrage and the media’s serve the interests of both sides. Politico Magazine wrote last month of Trump’s “fake war on the fake news.”
But it now seems clear that the war is real: Trump has every intention of using his power as president to punish journalists who cross him. On Tuesday night, the New York Times reported that, according to a memo written by James Comey, Trump had asked the then-director of the FBI to lay off of Flynn, who is under investigation—a possible obstruction of justice. But that’s not the story’s only chilling revelation. According to the Times, on Feb. 14 Trump made another request of Comey:
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