What tangible harms could come from an investigation? Legal fees?

An “investigation” from a federal government agency that wants you gone merely for your political slant is basically a death sentence.

This was a challenge to a CID order.

So in this case, lots of docuemnts and a lot fees :)

You can look at page 10 to get a glance at some of the request, which would be ... amazingly onerous to comply with.

>A federal judge granted an injunction on Friday blocking the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of Media Matters, saying the inquiry violated the free speech rights of the liberal watchdog group, which had published research critical of Elon Musk and his social media platform, X.

How can a judge block what amounts to an anti trust investigation into Media Matters and the advertising companies? Calling it a first amendment violation seems like a stretch. When apartment owners signal pricing to each other is that also off limits because of the first amendment?

The judge blocked a very broad CID. See page 10 for a list of just some of the documents requested.

I don't think you can argue in good faith that the vast majority of these have literally anything to do with antitrust.

Colluding to fix prices is not protected political speech. Advocacy groups talking to each other about their advocacy activities is.