Judge Temporarily Blocks Missouri AG’s Investigation Into Media Matters
(Photo courtesy of Missouri Attorney General’s Flickr Page)
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has temporarily halted Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s efforts to investigate the liberal media watchdog group, Media Matters for America. Bailey, a Republican, initiated the investigation following Media Matters’ reporting that criticized tech billionaire Elon Musk for allegedly tolerating extremism and hate speech on his social media platform, X, formerly known as Twitter.
Bailey’s lawsuit sought to probe Media Matters, accusing the organization of engaging in fraudulent activities. “Media Matters, a self-styled not-for-profit ‘progressive research and information center,’ envisions itself monitoring, analyzing, and correcting ‘conservative misinformation’ in the U.S. media,” Bailey stated when filing the suit.
He further claimed, “In fact, this description falls far short of reality for this political activist organization. Instead, rather than passively ‘monitoring,’ Media Matters has used fraud to solicit donations from Missourians in order to trick advertisers into removing their advertisements from X, formerly Twitter, one of the last platforms dedicated to free speech in America.”
Bailey also accused Media Matters of manipulating X’s algorithm to ensure that advertisers’ content would appear next to controversial posts, thereby pressuring them to pull their ads from the platform. However, on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta issued a preliminary injunction, blocking Bailey from enforcing his investigation. Critics have condemned the investigation as an attempt to infringe on Media Matters’ First Amendment rights.
Judge Mehta’s order mirrors a similar injunction he issued against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is conducting a comparable investigation into Media Matters under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Media Matters’ CEO, Angelo Carusone, has accused Musk of orchestrating a campaign to encourage Republican attorneys general across the country to file such lawsuits as a form of harassment and intimidation, told Rolling Stone.
In addition to these legal battles, X has filed its own lawsuit in federal court against the World Federation of Advertisers, CVS, Orsted, Unilever, and Mars, alleging a conspiracy to deprive the social media platform of revenue. The case, which legal experts have widely criticized as lacking merit, was filed in Wichita Falls, Texas, where it was assigned to Judge Reed O’Connor, a far-right partisan known for his later-overturned ruling that would have abolished the Affordable Care Act.
In an unexpected twist, Judge O’Connor recused himself from the case due to his financial holdings in Unilever and Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla. This development adds another layer of complexity to an already contentious legal battle involving high-profile figures and significant First Amendment concerns.
