• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, August 23, 2024

U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C. has ordered Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to halt his investigation of the watchdog Media Matters over its critical report about brand safety on X.

Mehta hasn't yet issued a written opinion spelling out his reasons for the injunction, which he issued Thursday.

The order came several months after Mehta issued a similar injunction against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who also attempted to investigate Media Matters. Mehta said at the time that Paxton's investigation likely reflected an unconstitutional attempt to chill Media Matters' reporting activity, which is protected by the First Amendment. (Paxton has appealed the injunction to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hasn't yet issued a decision.)

Both Paxton and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey launched their investigations at around the same time that X, formerly Twitter, sued Media Matters for reporting that ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM and Oracle were being placed next to pro-Nazi posts on the platform.

X alleged in its suit that Media Matters “manipulated” X's algorithms in order to “bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content.” X also said the ad placements highlighted in Media Matters' report were “inorganic” and rare.

Bailey, like Paxton, subpoenaed a host of material from Media Matters -- including internal documents relating to its report about brand safety on X.

Among other items, Bailey's subpoena specifically sought any documents discussing Elon Musk's purchase of X, and any communications relating to Media Matters' supposed “strategy to pressure advertisers into pulling advertisements from the social media platform.”

In March, while Media Matters' request for an injunction against Paxton was pending, Bailey asked petitioned a state court judge in Missouri to order Media Matters to comply with the subpoena.

Bailey alleged in his petition that Media Matters “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.”

Media Matters then sought a federal injunction blocking Bailey's investigation.

“Bailey’s demand, like Paxton’s, seeks to rifle through Media Matters’s most sensitive internal documents ... in retaliation for Media Matters’s reporting about X,” the group alleged in its complaint, filed in April with Mehta.

Media Matters added that Bailey knew of the group's lawsuit against Paxton and “likely engineered the Missouri 'investigation' as a backup” to the one in Texas.

Mehta's new order prohibits Bailey from issuing any additional subpoenas or taking any steps to mandate action by Media Matter and its employees.