Tom Cotton does Trump’s bidding, blocks bipartisan press shield bill

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These are heady times for U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton. Arkansas’s junior Republican senator recently ascended to GOP conference chair, the third highest position in the Republican Senate leadership ranks, after defeating Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst. And he’s in line to chair the Senate Intelligence Committee, which will give Cotton a perch to do what he seems to enjoy most — beat the war drums against China and Iran, and advocate for more bloodshed in the name of American empire.

He’ll also have the ear of President-elect Donald Trump. Cotton became close to Trump during his first administration, thanks in part to his foreign policy chops and flair for inflammatory rhetoric. But most importantly, Cotton has again and again displayed the quality the incoming president admires most: Unquestioned fealty to Donald Trump, no matter the costs to the country.

Cotton demonstrated those bona fides on Tuesday by blocking the PRESS Act, a bipartisan bill intended to shield journalists from revealing confidential sources when pressured by the federal government. If passed, federal law enforcement and other agencies generally could not use subpoenas or warrants to force reporters into giving up such information.

The bill passed the Republican-led U.S. House on a unanimous voice vote and is supported by senators from the right and the left. Its sponsors include liberal stalwarts Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), hard-right conservative Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Trump loyalist Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina). That’s for good reason: Conservatives have just as much reason as liberals to fear government interference and retaliation when it comes to press freedoms.

But Donald Trump hates it. “REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL,” he wrote on Truth Social last month. Trump, who has called reporters the “enemies of the people,” is apparently threatened by the idea of legislation that might prevent his appointees from going after journalists who share information the government would rather keep secret.

When Wyden brought up the bill in the Senate on Tuesday to try to fast-track its passage, Cotton stepped up to object. Here’s Stateline on his comments:

Cotton, who’s the incoming Senate GOP conference chair, said the measure would “turn reporters into a protected class — free to hold, share and publish highly classified and dangerous information that no other American is allowed to possess.”

He also said the bill would turn the Senate “into the active accomplice of deep-state leakers, traitors and criminals, along with the America-hating and fame-hungry journalists who helped them out.”

That’s right. In Cotton’s telling, a bill that would protect reporters from being targeted by, say, the FBI or the ATF, is in fact a tool of the “deep state.”

Remember: A journalist can be anyone. There are no licensing or credentialing requirements to be a reporter or publish information, whether on social media or on a podcast or in a print magazine. Any person can occupy that role — left or right, amateur or professional, benign or not. When Cotton rants against America-hating journalists, he’s assuming his base will imagine a certain sort of person. But ultimately, his goal is to make sure federal law enforcement retains its power to keep the government’s secrets secret.

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