• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, Yesterday

Siding with Media Matters for America, a federal appellate court has upheld an injunction prohibiting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from enforcing a subpoena for a trove of information from the watchdog.

In a ruling issued Friday, a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta's finding that Media Matters was likely to prevail with its claim that Paxton's “retaliatory investigation” violated the First Amendment.

“In this case, there is uncontested evidence of Paxton’s retaliatory motive in investigating Media Matters,” Circuit Judge Harry Edwards wrote in an opinion joined by Florence Pan. Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson concurred in a separate opinion.

The ruling comes in a battle dating to November 2023, soon after Media Matters published a negative report about brand safety on X, formerly Twitter. The organization reported that ads for brands including Apple, Bravo, IBM and Oracle were being placed next to pro-Nazi posts on the platform.

X sued Media Matters shortly after the report came out, alleging that the nonprofit “manipulated” X's algorithms in order to “bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content.”

On the same day X sued, Paxton announced he was investigating whether Media Matters violated a Texas consumer protection law that prohibits “fraudulent acts.”

Paxton's office stated at the time that he was “extremely troubled” by allegations that Media Matters -- which he described as a “radical left-wing” organization -- “fraudulently manipulated” X's data.

As part of that investigation, he served the organization with a subpoena demanding a host of documents -- including all internal and external communications regarding Elon Musk's purchase of X, all communications regarding the November report on brand safety, and communications with Apple, IBM, Bravo and other companies named in that report.

Media Matters then sued Paxton to prevent him from enforcing the subpoena.

Mehta sided with Media Matters and enjoined Paxton last April, writing in a 40-page opinion that the nonprofit had proven its reporting activities were protected by the First Amendment, and that Paxton took action aimed at chilling the group's speech.

Mehta added that Paxton's investigation and subpoena caused MediaMatters “to self-censor when making research and publication decisions, adversely affected the relationships between editors and reporters, and restricted communications with sources and journalists.”

Paxton appealed to the D.C. Circuit, asking that court to lift the injunction.

That court on Friday rejected Paxton's arguments.

“The District Court did not err in granting the preliminary injunction,” Edwards wrote, adding that Media Matters “demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits” of its “First Amendment retaliation claim.”

He wrote that Media Matters was “obviously engaged in conduct protected under the First Amendment,” adding that the battle with Paxton stemmed from the group's “news reporting on a public figure and alleged political extremism on a popular social media platform.”