I guess the main question is, are we having a legal or moral conversation? Because when you're discussing law- which I think is the vastly more important aspect here- these aren't technicalities. I don't believe there's a thing called "the spirit of the First Amendment". There's just the First Amendment, and how the courts have enforced it and are likely to continue enforcing it. I don't think it would be a 1A violation if he did it in office- in fact, Taibbi's thread says the Trump admin did the same thing, and I don't think that's a 1A violation (legally) either.