A New McCarthyism? House GOP Subpoenas BreakThrough News in Escalating War on Progressive Groups

Guests - Rania KhalekBeirut-based journalist at BreakThrough News, where she hosts the programs Dispatches and BT Live. The Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed BreakThrough News last week, demanding the independent online news outlet hand over internal communications and financial records. BreakThrough News says it’s being targeted over its coverage of U.S. mass deportations, ICE abuses, Cuba and Palestine solidarity and U.S. foreign policy. “They’re attempting to criminalize dissent and an independent press,” says BreakThrough News journalist Rania Khalek, comparing it to the McCarthy-era campaign against left-wing groups. “Everybody who cares about a free press and cares about free speech should be alarmed about an attack like this.” Transcript AMY GOODMAN: So, last week, the Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed three left-leaning nonprofit organizations, including BreakThrough News, demanding the independent online news outlet hand over internal communications. We’re joined now by Rania Khalek, a Beirut-based journalist at BreakThrough News, where she hosts programs Dispatches and BT Live. Your Substack post is headlined “Congress Just Subpoenaed Our Newsroom for Doing Journalism.” And this came out soon after that speech of Stephen Miller and their so-called terrorism summit. If you can respond about what’s happening to BreakThrough News and how you’re responding to your — to the subpoena? RANIA KHALEK: Yeah. Thanks so much, Amy. And you’re absolutely right. I mean, this subpoena came on the heels of that anti-communist summit, where Stephen Miller spoke from that clip you just showed, and on the heels of that Cuba report that basically identified opposition to the blockade in Cuba, as well as all kinds of other criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, as being part of some foreign plot. And this subpoena we’ve received is part of a long-standing attack against us. We’ve been under attack from Trump’s right-wing allies in Congress for years now. However, we started receiving letters from the Ways and Means Committee earlier this year, basically pointing to our viewpoints as a problem and justification for why they wanted us to turn over First Amendment-protected materials. In fact, in these letters they’ve been sending us, they specifically mention our coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and of the ICE kidnappings and killings across the country that have sparked massive uprisings. And they also accuse us of anti-American rhetoric, which is just, you know, summoning the ghosts of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthyism era. So, this is a flagrant attack on our First Amendment rights as an independent media outlet, and everybody should be alarmed. Everybody who cares about a free press and cares about free speech should be alarmed about an attack like this. I mean, the Ways and Means Committee is supposed to be reviewing tax policy, and they’re coming after a tiny nonprofit. If they really wanted to review tax policy, they could go after the massive nonprofits across the country. And they’re explicitly saying it’s because of our viewpoints. AMY GOODMAN: So, you mentioned Joe McCarthy. And especially for the youngest generation who’s listening right now, they might not know who you’re talking about. I want to turn to Senator Joe McCarthy speaking in 1952 during the Red Scare. SEN. JOSEPH McCARTHY: One communist on the faculty of one university is one communist too many. Even if there are only one communist in the State Department, that would still be one communist too many. AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy. If you, Rania, can talk about how this is affecting BreakThrough News, having to deal with news and U.S. foreign policy, of course, around the world, and at the same time, how you answered this subpoena? RANIA KHALEK: Well, we have legal counsel. Our lawyers have been responding to the letters, and they are aggressively challenging these violations of our constitutional rights. And under no circumstances will BreakThrough News be compromising or surrendering our First Amendment rights or the freedom of the press, so we will absolutely be fighting this through our lawyers. As for the McCarthyism here, you know, Amy, I think it’s interesting, because there’s an important lesson I think we should take from the McCarthyist era. And that is, you know, during that time, they got the public on board. That’s the reason it worked. It wasn’t the committees. It was because they got the public on board. What’s interesting about what’s happening right now is they’re attempting to criminalize dissent and an independent press because they’re losing the argument. You know, we at BreakThrough News, our viewpoints are not fringe, right? It’s opposition to the genocide in Gaza. It’s, you know, desiring free healthcare across the U.S. It’s opposition to these ICE kidnappings and killings. These are actually in keeping with the majority of Americans across the country. And so, this administration is deeply unpopular. Its agenda is unpopular. Meanwhile, we see progressive politics are ascendant. Socialist candidates are winning primaries. The movement, you know, against the genocide in Gaza is growing. So, this foreign plot smear is all they have left, because they can’t win on their merits. And that’s what people need to understand this as. So, we at Breakthrough News, we’re going to continue to do our reporting. People can go to our website, BreakThroughNews.org, sign the petition to drop this attack on the First Amendment. And if you can, donate to our legal expenses, because at the end of the day, we’re a tiny outlet. We have a microscopic budget compared to the, you know, massive corporate media outlets that run the airwaves. Every dollar that we spend on, you know, these legal fees is a dollar we can’t spend on reporting. And I think they’re just trying to drain us of our resources to silence us. But we’re not going to be silenced. AMY GOODMAN: It’s very interesting. We’re speaking now in the wake of the Department of Justice dropping the subpoenas against The New York Times, their reporters, and one of the reporters’ mother, their spouses, as their lawyers took on the Department of Justice. And finally, as we talk about McCarthy, let’s not forget that Joseph McCarthy hired Roy Cohn as chief counsel for HUAC, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in January of 1953. And President Trump learned at the knee of Roy Cohn in New York. Your final comments, Rania Khalek? RANIA KHALEK: Well, you know, I just want to say, these allegations of, you know, being influenced by foreign governments or a foreign plot, you know, Amy, I’m an agent of reality and an agent of the truth, because I’m a journalist. I’m not an agent of some foreign power. And I’m speaking to you from Beirut, Lebanon, where I watch my U.S. tax dollars fund the Israeli bombs that get dropped on my family. That’s what moves me to do the kind of journalism that I’m doing. That’s what moves me to oppose the genocide in Gaza and oppose the blockade on Cuba — again, in keeping with the majority of American sentiment. So, I’m going to keep doing the journalism that I’m doing. BreakThrough News is going to keep reporting. And we all have to unite and push back, because this isn’t just about BreakThrough News. It’s about an independent press. It’s about free speech. It’s about the First Amendment. It starts with BreakThrough News, but if we let them win, next they come after Democracy Now!, and it only gets bigger from there. AMY GOODMAN: Medea Benjamin and Rania Khalek, I want to thank you both. Rania Khalek is the journalist at BreakThrough News, based in Beirut, Lebanon, and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, joining us from Washington, D.C. Coming up, at the request of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, ICE deported a Colombian activist. The reason? His criticisms of the far-right, Trump-endorsed Colombian president-elect. We’ll go to Bogotá. Stay with us. [break] AMY GOODMAN: “If I Was President” by Las Cafeteras in our Democracy Now! studios. Media Options