This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

The issue of free speech, the struggle over separating fact from conspiracy theory, all of this is at the heart of the Trump era.

Donald Trump's opponents contend that violence against protesters by federal agents is just one

manifestation of that struggle. And so is the arrest of a journalist like Don Lemon,

whom government officials have accused of being a co-conspirator in a Minneapolis protest.

And you can say the same for the myriad lawsuits that Trump has filed against so many newspapers

and networks.

Janine Eunice is a lawyer specializing in First Amendment cases.

She serves as the legal director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Now, once an ally of conservatives fighting the Biden administration,

Eunice has become a bitter opponent of the Trump administration.

Let's begin, not at the very, very beginning, but take me back to 2023.

You spent several months working with the

House Select Committee on the weaponization of the federal government where you helped lead an

investigation in what was then called, and I quote, the censorship industrial complex.

What specifically were you investigating and how did that issue get on your

radar? Well, so we were investigating government involvement, especially federal government

involvement in social media censorship. And so we were investigating exactly what was going on

between the federal government and the tech companies, the social media companies, and trying to figure out the extent of First Amendment violative conduct on the

government's part. This was mainly about COVID, censorship around topics related to COVID,

especially the vaccines, but also other areas like lockdowns and mask mandates.

...