(Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images)
Missouri Attorney General Andy Bailey will have to find a new chew toy thanks to Judge Amit Mehta. The state law enforcement official had set his sights on Media Matters for America, vowing to investigate the liberal outlet for aggravated mean to Twitter and first degree hurting Elon Musk’s feefees. But yesterday the DC federal judge ruined his plans, issuing a preliminary injunction barring the Missouri lawman from enforcing his subpoenas.
The case started so auspiciously! MMFA published a story documenting the proximity of major brands’ ads next to pro-Nazi content, and Musk promised a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against the non-profit and its donors. After Musk demanded to know why prosecutors weren’t going after journalists for doing the RICO to him, both Bailey and Texas AG Ken Paxton volunteered their services.
My team is looking into this matter.
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) November 19, 2023
Paxton went first, issuing a subpoena on MMFA, which is in DC, and reporter Eric Hananoki, a Maryland resident. After Judge Mehta enjoined enforcement of the Texas subpoenas, Bailey put on his thinking cap and came up with a crafty plan. On March 25, he also issued an investigative subpoena to MMFA. But on the very same day he marched into the Circuit Court of Cole County Missouri and asked the judge to find MMFA out of compliance with a subpoena that had a return date of April 15. His theory was that getting a federal judge to block Paxton’s demand meant that “Media Matters has expressed its intent not to comply with CIDs like this one,” and thus the state court should head off any federal action at the pass.
MMFA promptly filed a supplemental complaint, suing to block Bailey’s subpoena, designating it a related case, since the AG had conveniently admitted his demand was virtually identical to Paxton’s.
Bailey, who claimed that MMFA had consented to be sued in Missouri because some of its donors may or may not be domiciled in his state, objected that the federal court in DC lacked personal jurisdiction over him. Because irony is DEAD.
Pointing out that Bailey had availed himself of the city’s process servers to deliver his nastygrams to MMFA, Judge Mehta disagreed.
Bailey then argued that Younger abstention obligated the federal court to accede to his gambit and allow the state court proceedings to unfold. But Judge Mehta was no more persuaded by the dismissal plea than he was by the jurisdictional claims. Yesterday he entered a preliminary injunction barring the AG from enforcing his investigative demands. The judge promised to flesh out his reasoning in a forthcoming memorandum opinion, but, until that drops, we choose to believe that it says, “LOL, BRO DO YOU EVEN LAW?” Probably followed by the eye roll emoji, the cow emoji, the poop emoji, and then the cry-laughing emoji.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.