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When Ira Reiner was the District Attorney for Los Angeles County back twenty-five years ago
Not that he would prosecute every case.
But he would investigate every case as a corporate crime.
And sometimes he would bring criminal charges against the corporation for the death of a worker.
Today, you rarely see a prosecutor bring criminal charges against a corporation for the death of a worker.
Instead, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) imposes minimal civil fines on companies for worker deaths.
Just in the past two months, OSHA fined one company $28,000 and another $77,000 for worker deaths.
In 2007, after a few high profile worker death cases, the UK passed a corporate homicide law.
The law allows prosecutors to bring homicide charges against the corporation for the death of workers or consumers. Similar laws are being debated in New Zealand and Australia.
In just the last two years, 108 homicide prosecutions have been opened in the UK against corporations under the law.
Do OSHA and its chief David Michaels support passage of such a law in the United States?
“Although they are not technically manslaughter cases, the OSH Act provides for criminal penalties for employers whose willful violation of an OSHA standard causes death to any employee,” an OSHA spokesperson said in response to the question.
“Because, under federal law, only the Department of Justice may prosecute criminal cases, we refer appropriate cases to the Department of Justice for prosecution under this provision. We also assist in the prosecution of cases involving worker deaths under other statutes, such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, which provide more severe sanctions than those available under the OSH Act. In addition, we assist local prosecutors seeking actual manslaughter convictions in worker deaths.”
Any other questions, the OSHA spokesperson asked, via e-mail?
Yes, back to the original question.
Do David Michaels and OSHA support the passage of a federal corporate homicide statute in the US similar to the one passed in the UK?
No answer.
So, OSHA isn’t taking a corporate homicide law seriously.
But James Harlow is.
Harlow is a 2012 graduate of Duke School of Law.
While at Duke, he wrote a law review article titled Corporate Criminal Liability for Homicide: A Statutory Framework.
In it, he lays out a draft statute that begins with these words:
“An organization is guilty of corporate homicide when it knowingly, recklessly or negligently causes the death of a human being.”
In the article supporting the draft statute, Harlow argues that “a corporation may be directly responsible for the deaths of the employees, consumers, and members of the general public with whom it interacts.”
“In situations of systemic internal misconduct or corporate recidivism, civil regulatory penalties and private lawsuits are insufficient to vindicate society’s interest in punishing the entity responsible for these deaths.”
“There are instances when a corporate entity is a truly blameworthy actor, rather than -- or in addition to -- individual employees, and when a criminal sanction against the corporation would have the greatest effect. This may be particularly true for large corporations given their complex bureaucratic structures.”
“Current homicide schemes are ill equipped to accommodate corporate defendants. Historically, there have been few significant corporate prosecutions for homicide. Those that have occurred have tended to be against small companies in which ownership and management were united in the same individuals, who were also charged individually.”
“The paucity of successful prosecutions suggests that current law does not provide prosecutors with the power to bring corporate homicide charges or, that if the power exists, its lack of clarity discourages prosecutors from bringing cases.”
Why not just hold individual executives criminally responsible? Why the corporation?
“The individual employees in the vast majority of these cases are acting the way they are acting because of their role within the corporation,” Harlow told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week.
“The corporation is at the heart of the criminal conduct. There is a need to express to the corporation the moral sanction and blameworthiness that comes with the criminal law.”
But aren’t you only hurting innocent shareholders if you hold the corporation liable?
“These shareholders benefit when the corporation engages in nefarious conduct,” Harlow said. “And they are profiting from that.”
“As far as civil regulatory schemes, there are times when the civil regulatory schemes don’t have teeth - for whatever reason - the regulators being overworked or underfunded, or the regulatory scheme itself doesn’t provide the sanctions necessary to make the corporation change its ways.”
“In those instances for serial regulatory violators, the criminal law can serve as an instrument to help turn around the corporation and prevent future wrongdoing by those most culpable corporations.”
Harlow says that “the expression of a community’s moral condemnation, even when applied to corporations, is unique to criminal law and goes beyond the utilitarian goals of rehabilitation and deterrence. There is significant intrinsic value to this expressive force when it is applied to corporations in the same way that it is applied to individuals.”
Harlow writes that “organizational theorists recognize that an organization’s culture is closely intertwined with its leadership.”
“Management may create a culture that sacrifices safety for profits, or it may create a safety-first culture. The desire for profits can be a powerful -- even irresistible -- force that can cause a corporation to hazard great risks. In such cases, the corporation may be the truly blameworthy actor, rather than any one employee.”
Is Harlow saying that you can indict a corporation for its culture?
“Corporate culture is evidence that can and should be considered against a corporation,” Harlow says. “You are able to divine a corporate culture from its written policies, its de facto policies, and its ethos, as testified to by employees, mid-level managers, senior managers. It is possible to put your hand on a corporate culture and a corporate ethos. You shouldn’t indict a corporation solely because you think it has a bad culture, or exclusively a profit maximizing culture that sacrifices safety. But it certainly could be evidence brought against a corporation.”
Harlow’s draft law would impose a maximum $10 million fine per death on the corporation. But perhaps more important, he would impose a maximum five years of probation.
And he believes that the federal government should create a corporate crime unit within the probation office.
“There are enough federal corporate crime cases that it would be worthwhile to see whether there should be some centralized unit that represents the U.S. government’s interest in terms of corporate probation,” Harlow says. “It’s worthy of study and debate. It might be preferable to the present system of corporate monitorships, where former high level prosecutors sit in the boardroom.”
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When Ira Reiner was the District Attorney for Los Angeles County back twenty-five years ago
Not that he would prosecute every case.
But he would investigate every case as a corporate crime.
And sometimes he would bring criminal charges against the corporation for the death of a worker.
Today, you rarely see a prosecutor bring criminal charges against a corporation for the death of a worker.
Instead, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) imposes minimal civil fines on companies for worker deaths.
Just in the past two months, OSHA fined one company $28,000 and another $77,000 for worker deaths.
In 2007, after a few high profile worker death cases, the UK passed a corporate homicide law.
The law allows prosecutors to bring homicide charges against the corporation for the death of workers or consumers. Similar laws are being debated in New Zealand and Australia.
In just the last two years, 108 homicide prosecutions have been opened in the UK against corporations under the law.
Do OSHA and its chief David Michaels support passage of such a law in the United States?
“Although they are not technically manslaughter cases, the OSH Act provides for criminal penalties for employers whose willful violation of an OSHA standard causes death to any employee,” an OSHA spokesperson said in response to the question.
“Because, under federal law, only the Department of Justice may prosecute criminal cases, we refer appropriate cases to the Department of Justice for prosecution under this provision. We also assist in the prosecution of cases involving worker deaths under other statutes, such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, which provide more severe sanctions than those available under the OSH Act. In addition, we assist local prosecutors seeking actual manslaughter convictions in worker deaths.”
Any other questions, the OSHA spokesperson asked, via e-mail?
Yes, back to the original question.
Do David Michaels and OSHA support the passage of a federal corporate homicide statute in the US similar to the one passed in the UK?
No answer.
So, OSHA isn’t taking a corporate homicide law seriously.
But James Harlow is.
Harlow is a 2012 graduate of Duke School of Law.
While at Duke, he wrote a law review article titled Corporate Criminal Liability for Homicide: A Statutory Framework.
In it, he lays out a draft statute that begins with these words:
“An organization is guilty of corporate homicide when it knowingly, recklessly or negligently causes the death of a human being.”
In the article supporting the draft statute, Harlow argues that “a corporation may be directly responsible for the deaths of the employees, consumers, and members of the general public with whom it interacts.”
“In situations of systemic internal misconduct or corporate recidivism, civil regulatory penalties and private lawsuits are insufficient to vindicate society’s interest in punishing the entity responsible for these deaths.”
“There are instances when a corporate entity is a truly blameworthy actor, rather than -- or in addition to -- individual employees, and when a criminal sanction against the corporation would have the greatest effect. This may be particularly true for large corporations given their complex bureaucratic structures.”
“Current homicide schemes are ill equipped to accommodate corporate defendants. Historically, there have been few significant corporate prosecutions for homicide. Those that have occurred have tended to be against small companies in which ownership and management were united in the same individuals, who were also charged individually.”
“The paucity of successful prosecutions suggests that current law does not provide prosecutors with the power to bring corporate homicide charges or, that if the power exists, its lack of clarity discourages prosecutors from bringing cases.”
Why not just hold individual executives criminally responsible? Why the corporation?
“The individual employees in the vast majority of these cases are acting the way they are acting because of their role within the corporation,” Harlow told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week.
“The corporation is at the heart of the criminal conduct. There is a need to express to the corporation the moral sanction and blameworthiness that comes with the criminal law.”
But aren’t you only hurting innocent shareholders if you hold the corporation liable?
“These shareholders benefit when the corporation engages in nefarious conduct,” Harlow said. “And they are profiting from that.”
“As far as civil regulatory schemes, there are times when the civil regulatory schemes don’t have teeth - for whatever reason - the regulators being overworked or underfunded, or the regulatory scheme itself doesn’t provide the sanctions necessary to make the corporation change its ways.”
“In those instances for serial regulatory violators, the criminal law can serve as an instrument to help turn around the corporation and prevent future wrongdoing by those most culpable corporations.”
Harlow says that “the expression of a community’s moral condemnation, even when applied to corporations, is unique to criminal law and goes beyond the utilitarian goals of rehabilitation and deterrence. There is significant intrinsic value to this expressive force when it is applied to corporations in the same way that it is applied to individuals.”
Harlow writes that “organizational theorists recognize that an organization’s culture is closely intertwined with its leadership.”
“Management may create a culture that sacrifices safety for profits, or it may create a safety-first culture. The desire for profits can be a powerful -- even irresistible -- force that can cause a corporation to hazard great risks. In such cases, the corporation may be the truly blameworthy actor, rather than any one employee.”
Is Harlow saying that you can indict a corporation for its culture?
“Corporate culture is evidence that can and should be considered against a corporation,” Harlow says. “You are able to divine a corporate culture from its written policies, its de facto policies, and its ethos, as testified to by employees, mid-level managers, senior managers. It is possible to put your hand on a corporate culture and a corporate ethos. You shouldn’t indict a corporation solely because you think it has a bad culture, or exclusively a profit maximizing culture that sacrifices safety. But it certainly could be evidence brought against a corporation.”
Harlow’s draft law would impose a maximum $10 million fine per death on the corporation. But perhaps more important, he would impose a maximum five years of probation.
And he believes that the federal government should create a corporate crime unit within the probation office.
“There are enough federal corporate crime cases that it would be worthwhile to see whether there should be some centralized unit that represents the U.S. government’s interest in terms of corporate probation,” Harlow says. “It’s worthy of study and debate. It might be preferable to the present system of corporate monitorships, where former high level prosecutors sit in the boardroom.”
When Ira Reiner was the District Attorney for Los Angeles County back twenty-five years ago
Not that he would prosecute every case.
But he would investigate every case as a corporate crime.
And sometimes he would bring criminal charges against the corporation for the death of a worker.
Today, you rarely see a prosecutor bring criminal charges against a corporation for the death of a worker.
Instead, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) imposes minimal civil fines on companies for worker deaths.
Just in the past two months, OSHA fined one company $28,000 and another $77,000 for worker deaths.
In 2007, after a few high profile worker death cases, the UK passed a corporate homicide law.
The law allows prosecutors to bring homicide charges against the corporation for the death of workers or consumers. Similar laws are being debated in New Zealand and Australia.
In just the last two years, 108 homicide prosecutions have been opened in the UK against corporations under the law.
Do OSHA and its chief David Michaels support passage of such a law in the United States?
“Although they are not technically manslaughter cases, the OSH Act provides for criminal penalties for employers whose willful violation of an OSHA standard causes death to any employee,” an OSHA spokesperson said in response to the question.
“Because, under federal law, only the Department of Justice may prosecute criminal cases, we refer appropriate cases to the Department of Justice for prosecution under this provision. We also assist in the prosecution of cases involving worker deaths under other statutes, such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, which provide more severe sanctions than those available under the OSH Act. In addition, we assist local prosecutors seeking actual manslaughter convictions in worker deaths.”
Any other questions, the OSHA spokesperson asked, via e-mail?
Yes, back to the original question.
Do David Michaels and OSHA support the passage of a federal corporate homicide statute in the US similar to the one passed in the UK?
No answer.
So, OSHA isn’t taking a corporate homicide law seriously.
But James Harlow is.
Harlow is a 2012 graduate of Duke School of Law.
While at Duke, he wrote a law review article titled Corporate Criminal Liability for Homicide: A Statutory Framework.
In it, he lays out a draft statute that begins with these words:
“An organization is guilty of corporate homicide when it knowingly, recklessly or negligently causes the death of a human being.”
In the article supporting the draft statute, Harlow argues that “a corporation may be directly responsible for the deaths of the employees, consumers, and members of the general public with whom it interacts.”
“In situations of systemic internal misconduct or corporate recidivism, civil regulatory penalties and private lawsuits are insufficient to vindicate society’s interest in punishing the entity responsible for these deaths.”
“There are instances when a corporate entity is a truly blameworthy actor, rather than -- or in addition to -- individual employees, and when a criminal sanction against the corporation would have the greatest effect. This may be particularly true for large corporations given their complex bureaucratic structures.”
“Current homicide schemes are ill equipped to accommodate corporate defendants. Historically, there have been few significant corporate prosecutions for homicide. Those that have occurred have tended to be against small companies in which ownership and management were united in the same individuals, who were also charged individually.”
“The paucity of successful prosecutions suggests that current law does not provide prosecutors with the power to bring corporate homicide charges or, that if the power exists, its lack of clarity discourages prosecutors from bringing cases.”
Why not just hold individual executives criminally responsible? Why the corporation?
“The individual employees in the vast majority of these cases are acting the way they are acting because of their role within the corporation,” Harlow told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week.
“The corporation is at the heart of the criminal conduct. There is a need to express to the corporation the moral sanction and blameworthiness that comes with the criminal law.”
But aren’t you only hurting innocent shareholders if you hold the corporation liable?
“These shareholders benefit when the corporation engages in nefarious conduct,” Harlow said. “And they are profiting from that.”
“As far as civil regulatory schemes, there are times when the civil regulatory schemes don’t have teeth - for whatever reason - the regulators being overworked or underfunded, or the regulatory scheme itself doesn’t provide the sanctions necessary to make the corporation change its ways.”
“In those instances for serial regulatory violators, the criminal law can serve as an instrument to help turn around the corporation and prevent future wrongdoing by those most culpable corporations.”
Harlow says that “the expression of a community’s moral condemnation, even when applied to corporations, is unique to criminal law and goes beyond the utilitarian goals of rehabilitation and deterrence. There is significant intrinsic value to this expressive force when it is applied to corporations in the same way that it is applied to individuals.”
Harlow writes that “organizational theorists recognize that an organization’s culture is closely intertwined with its leadership.”
“Management may create a culture that sacrifices safety for profits, or it may create a safety-first culture. The desire for profits can be a powerful -- even irresistible -- force that can cause a corporation to hazard great risks. In such cases, the corporation may be the truly blameworthy actor, rather than any one employee.”
Is Harlow saying that you can indict a corporation for its culture?
“Corporate culture is evidence that can and should be considered against a corporation,” Harlow says. “You are able to divine a corporate culture from its written policies, its de facto policies, and its ethos, as testified to by employees, mid-level managers, senior managers. It is possible to put your hand on a corporate culture and a corporate ethos. You shouldn’t indict a corporation solely because you think it has a bad culture, or exclusively a profit maximizing culture that sacrifices safety. But it certainly could be evidence brought against a corporation.”
Harlow’s draft law would impose a maximum $10 million fine per death on the corporation. But perhaps more important, he would impose a maximum five years of probation.
And he believes that the federal government should create a corporate crime unit within the probation office.
“There are enough federal corporate crime cases that it would be worthwhile to see whether there should be some centralized unit that represents the U.S. government’s interest in terms of corporate probation,” Harlow says. “It’s worthy of study and debate. It might be preferable to the present system of corporate monitorships, where former high level prosecutors sit in the boardroom.”
Against a backdrop of Israel's genocidal obliteration of Gaza City and a worsening man-made famine throughout the embattled Palestinian exclave, the United States on Thursday cast its sixth United Nations Security Council veto of a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all hostages held by Hamas.
At its 10,000th meeting, the UN Security Council voted 14-1 with no abstentions in favor of a resolution proposed by the 10 nonpermanent UNSC members demanding "an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire" in Gaza, the "release of all hostages" held by Hamas, and for Israel to "immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid" into the besieged strip.
Morgan Ortagus, President Donald Trump's deputy special envoy to the Middle East, vetoed the proposal, saying that the move "will come as no surprise," as the US has killed five previous UNSC Gaza ceasefire resolutions under both the Biden and Trump administrations, most recently in June.
Ortagus said the resolution failed to condemn Hamas or affirm Israel's right to self-defense and “wrongly legitimizes the false narratives benefiting Hamas, which have sadly found currency in this council."
The US has unconditionally provided Israel with billions of dollars worth of armed aid and diplomatic cover since October 2023 as the key Mideast ally wages a war increasingly viewed as genocidal, including by a commission of independent UN experts this week.
Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said the torpedoed resolution represented the "bare minimum" that must be accomplished, adding that “it is deeply regrettable and painful that it has been blocked.”
“Babies dying of starvation, snipers shooting people in the head, civilians killed en masse, families displaced again and again... humanitarians and journalists targeted... while Israeli officials are openly mocking all of this," Mansour added.
Following the UNSC's latest failure to pass a ceasefire resolution, Algerian Ambassador to the UN Amar Bendjama asked Gazans to "forgive" the body for not only its inability to approve such measures, but also for failing to stop the Gaza famine, in which at least hundreds of Palestinians have died and hundreds of thousands more are starving. Every UNSC members but the US concurred last month that the Gaza famine is a man-made catastrophe.
“Israel kills every day and nothing happens," Bendjama said. "Israel starves a people and nothing happens. Israel bombs hospitals, schools, shelters, and nothing happens. Israel attacks a mediator and steps on diplomacy, and nothing happens. And with every act, every act unpunished, humanity itself is diminished.”
Benjama also asked Gazans to "forgive us" for failing to protect children in the strip, more than 20,000 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockade over the past 713 days. He also noted that upward of 12,000 women, 4,000 elderly, 1,400 doctors and nurses, 500 aid workers, and 250 journalists “have been killed by Israel."
Condemning Thursday's veto, Hamas accused the US of “blatant complicity in the crime of genocide," which Israel is accused of committing in an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) case filed in December 2023 by South Africa and backed by around two dozen nations.
Hamas—which led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and is believed to be holding 20 hostages left alive out of 251 people kidnapped that day—implored the countries that sponsored the ceasefire resolution to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who along with former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, to accept an agreement to halt hostilities.
Overall, at least 65,141 Palestinians have been killed and over 165,900 others wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose figures have not only been confirmed by former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, but deemed a significant undercount by independent researchers. Thousands more Gazans are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of the flattened strip.
UK Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward stessed after Thursday's failed UNSC resolution that "we need a ceasefire more than ever."
“Israel’s reckless expansion of its military operation takes us further away from a deal which could bring the hostages home and end the suffering in Gaza," Woodward said.
Thursday's developments came as Israeli forces continued to lay waste to Gaza City as they push deeper into the city as part of Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from the strip's capital. Israeli leaders have said they are carrying out the operation in accordance with Trump's proposal to empty Gaza of Palestinians and transform it into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
In what some observers said was a bid to prevent the world from witnessing fresh Israeli war crimes in Gaza City, internet and phone lines were cut off in the strip Thursday, although officials said service has since been mostly restored.
Gaza officials said Thursday that at least 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces since dawn, including 40 in Gaza City, which Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum said is being pummeled into "a lifeless wasteland."
Azzoum reported that tens of thousands of Palestinians "are moving to the south on foot or in carts, looking for any place that is relatively safe—but with no guarantee of safety—or at least for shelter."
Israel has repeatedly bombed areas it advised Palestinians were "safe zones," including a September 2 airstrike that massacred 11 people—nine of them children—queued up to collect water in al-Mawasi.
"Most families who have arrived in the south have not found space," Azzoum added. "That’s why we’ve seen people setting up makeshift tents close to the water while others are left stranded in the street, living under the open sky."
President Donald Trump doubled down on his threats to silence his critics Thursday, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that outlets that give him "bad press" may have their broadcast licenses taken away.
The threat came just one day after his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) director, Brendan Carr, successfully pressured ABC into pulling Jimmy Kimmel's show from the air by threatening the broadcast licenses of its affiliates over a comment the comedian made about the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
"I read someplace that the networks were 97% against me," Trump told the press gaggle. "I get 97% negative, and yet I won it easily. I won all seven swing states, popular vote, I won everything. And they're 97% against, they give me wholly bad publicity... I mean, they're getting a license, I would think maybe their license should be taken away."
"When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do," the president continued. "If you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative on in years or something, somebody said, but when you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”
He said that the decision would be left up to Carr, who has threatened to take away licenses from networks that air what he called "distorted" content.
It is unclear where Trump's statistic that networks have been "97% against" him originates, nor the claim that mainstream news networks "haven't had a conservative on in years."
But even if it were true, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez says "the FCC doesn't have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to revoke a license because of content."
In comments made to Axios Thursday, Gomez—the lone Democrat on the five-member panel—said that the Trump administration was "weaponizing its licensing authority in order to bring broadcasters to heel," as part of a "campaign of censorship and control."
National news networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC do not have broadcasting licenses approved by the FCC, nor do cable networks like CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. The licenses threatened by Carr are for local affiliates, which—despite having the branding of the big networks—are owned by less well-known companies like Nexstar Media Group and the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, both of which pushed in favor of ABC's decision to ax Kimmel.
Gomez said that with Trump's intimidation of broadcasters, the "threat is the point."
"It is a very hard standard to meet to revoke a license, which is why it's so rarely done, but broadcast license to the broadcasters are extremely valuable," she said. "And so they don't want to be dragged before the FCC either in order to answer to an enforcement complaint of some kind or under the threat of possible revocation."
Democratic lawmakers are vowing to investigate the Trump administration's pressure campaign that may have led to ABC deciding to indefinitely suspend late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) announced on Thursday that he filed a motion to subpoena Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr one day after he publicly warned ABC of negative consequences if the network kept Kimmel on the air.
"Enough of Congress sleepwalking while [President Donald] Trump and [Vice President JD] Vance shred the First Amendment and Constitution," Khanna declared. "It is time for Congress to stand up for Article I."
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, also said on Thursday that he was opening an investigation into the potential financial aspects of Carr's pressure campaign on ABC, including the involvement of Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which is the network's largest affiliate and is currently involved in merger talks that will need FCC approval.
"The Oversight Committee is launching an investigation into ABC, Sinclair, and the FCC," he said. "We will not be intimidated and we will defend the First Amendment."
Progressive politicians weren't the only ones launching an investigation into the Kimmel controversy, as legal organization Democracy Forward announced that it's filed a a Freedom of Information Act request for records after January 20, 2025 related to any FCC efforts “to use the agency’s licensing and enforcement powers to police and limit speech and influence what the public can watch and hear.”