ABC is laying the groundwork for a landmark First Amendment fight.

On Thursday, ABC filed paperwork to renew its local TV station licenses “under protest in response to an unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional order” by the Federal Communications Commission.

ABC attached an extraordinary objection letter that accused the Trump-aligned agency of using “unconstitutional retaliation and coercion” to threaten speech.

The filings came one month after the FCC ordered ABC to submit renewal applications for all eight of its owned stations, even though the current licenses don’t expire for years. It was the latest escalation in the agency’s months-long attempt to pressure ABC and its parent company Disney.

“The only plausible reason to issue the order is to punish the station for speech the government does not like,” ABC argued in Thursday’s letter.

In response, FCC chairman Brendan Carr reiterated his claim that the license challenge is part of an ongoing FCC probe into Disney’s diversity initiatives.

“The FCC has been investigating Disney for over a year now after reports surfaced alleging that it had been discriminating against people based on race, gender, or other protected characteristics in violation of federal nondiscrimination laws,” Carr wrote on X.

Carr, who has followed President Trump’s lead in denouncing “woke” activism, wrote that the FCC “will follow the facts and law wherever they may lead.”

The FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, Anna Gomez, has argued that the discrimination talk is a pretext for a political targeting of Disney.


-CNN