If this was the result of Trump’s intervention—and we know be DID explicitly intervene—it’s at least as bad as Ukraine. It’s not $400 million but $10 billion in taxpayer funds held hostage to punish a newspaper’s exercise of core First Amendment rights. nytimes.com/2019/10/25/tec…
As I noted the other day, this is exactly how Mexico’s PRI controlled the press during the long era of one-party rule; less through explicit censorship than use of public funds to reward compliant papers, and punish ones that published negative coverage or exposed corruption.
Again, if this is the result of Trump’s directive to “screw Amazon” in procurement & there are no consequences, how many billions do we think the parent companies of media outlets are going to be willing to lose before they start ordering changes in coverage to appease Trump?
The House needs to request an expidited GAO review of the procurement process here immediately.
