Trump’s Illegal Venezuela Invasion
Our worst fears came to fruition when President Trump invaded Venezuela early this month, killing more than 80 civilians and service members and ousting President Nicolas Maduro in a regime-change operation that violated our Constitution and international law. Trump had been ramping up aggression for months, and as we’ve long warned, Congressional failure to invoke the War Powers Act has allowed Trump to take rogue military action.
Defending Rights & Dissent sprang into action, hosting a webinar with Constitutional law professor and former National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn just days after Trump’s raid, to examine the legal ramifications of the military action in depth.
We’ve organized mass support over the last several weeks for Congressional efforts to invoke the War Powers Act, which would rein Trump in by forcing a debate and vote in Congress over whether to take the country to war. We mobilized thousands of you to take action by writing your Representatives and Senators to urge support for several resolutions invoking the Act.
We finally secured a majority of Senators to pass a motion to advance one such resolution by a count of 52-47. But President Trump lashed out at the five Republicans who crossed the aisle in support, declaring they must “never be elected to office again,” and enough Senators switched back to opposition, creating a 50-50 tie on whether to bring it to a full floor vote. Vice President Vance broke the tie and killed the bill.
Rep. Tlaib to introduce the Daniel Ellsberg Act!
We are thrilled to announce that Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) will soon introduce a major bill that we helped draft, the Daniel Ellsberg Press Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act, which will reform the Espionage Act to protect whistleblowers and prevent the law’s use against journalists, publishers, and members of the general public.
The bill follows reforms long advocated for by our Policy Director Chip Gibbons, who was instrumental in drafting it. These proposals were previously introduced by Tlaib as proposed amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act. We previously worked closely with Daniel Ellsberg on those efforts and the bill is named in his honor.
Urge your Congress members to support the bill! Use this tool to write your Representatives and call on them to defend press freedom, whistleblowers, and your right to know by becoming an original cosponsor of the Daniel Ellsberg Press Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act.
House Committee Subpoenas Journalist Seth Harp
Defending Rights & Dissent is taking the lead to defend journalists at risk and their First Amendment rights. Investigative reporter Seth Harp, author of groundbreaking exposé The Fort Bragg Cartel, came under Congressional fire this month when House Oversight Committee member Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) introduced a motion to subpoena Harp for allegedly “leaking classified intel about [the U.S. military raid to depose Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro] Operation Absolute Resolve, including doxxing a Delta Force commander.” Rep. Luna also called for Harp to be charged with a crime.
We took action immediately, issuing a statement in response to the bill passing the Committee. “Rep. Luna’s subpoena of investigative reporter Seth Harp is clearly designed to chill and intimidate a journalist doing some of the most significant investigative reporting on U.S. Special Forces,” our Policy Director, Chip Gibbons, said. “Her own statement makes clear that far from having a valid legislative purpose, she seeks to hold a journalist ‘accountable’ for what is essentially reporting she dislikes.”
The following week, we led more than 20 other leading press freedom and First Amendment groups, including the ACLU, PEN America, the National Writers Union, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, on a joint letter calling on the House of Representatives to protect the freedom of the press and rescind the subpoena for Harp.
“There is zero question that Harp’s actions were fully and squarely within the protections of the First Amendment, as well as outside the scope of any federal criminal statutes,” we write.
The letter was featured on Democracy Now!, the Columbia Review of Journalism, and Truthout.
FBI Raids Washington Post Reporter’s Home
The Trump administration has shown a blatant disregard for press freedom and journalists’ rights, and the First Amendment needs our vigilant defense. That was made even more starkly clear earlier this week when the FBI raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, seizing her phone and personal and work computers in the process.
Our Policy Director Chip Gibbons coauthored an op-ed in The Guardian the following day, recounting the policies and practices that paved the way for law enforcement to raid a reporter’s belongings while persecuting government leaks. “The FBI’s raid of a journalist’s home was the product of decades of backsliding,” he writes.
We also joined a coalition of 31 press-freedom and civil-liberties groups to publish a joint statement condemning the raid. The statement calls for strengthened press-freedom protections under law and stricter oversight of the government.
“Government invasion into a reporter’s home and the seizure of journalistic materials is exactly the kind of scenario our First Amendment was conceived to protect against,” reads the statement, whose signers also include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press Action, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the National Association of Black Journalists, the News Guild-CWA, PEN America and Reporters Without Borders. “Our First Amendment protects freedom of the press — including journalistic publication of leaked government secrets — as well as freedom for the public to access such information.”