Is this more of a wholesale condemnation of the press? The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. Is there a more revealing way to let the public know why the journalistic organization believes these sources are credible? Abrams was one of the attorneys who represented the New York Times in the civil case that argued the government should not be able to block the media organization from publishing the Pentagon Papers. And the words of the president matter particularly. Thank you for helping build the largest language community on the internet. Attorney Floyd Abrams, who represented The New York Times in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case and went on to become America’s leading First Amendment litigator, talked with CJR about President Trump’s unprecedented assault on the press, whether leaks from government officials are appropriate, and how the growing acceptance of speech restrictions is an ominous sign for our democracy. Alan Murray interviews Floyd Abrams, the legendary first amendment attorney, about the recent WikiLeaks disclosure and its relationship to the Pentagon Papers The Internal Revenue Service has confidential information about the press leaders as well as everyone else. CJR: Trump and others have denounced the culture of “illegal leaks” in Washington and called the “deep state” a threat to our democracy. He has worked on the Pentagon Papers case and Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), to Landmark Communications v. Virginia (1978) and Smith v. VTR: 01/12/05. And I think that’s precisely where the revelations about General Flynn fit. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. No misconduct by the US. CJR: How do you see this as unique to Trump as opposed to say the Nixon administration? That said, it’s perfectly true to say that throughout American history we’ve had presidents who disparaged the press—Jefferson himself did that more than once, sometimes amusingly, and sometimes not. The Federal Communications Commission has broad authority over the broadcast medium. Abrams: Well, a part of this relates to the manner of presentation. CJR: Final question. Abrams himself emerged in 2010 to pen a long New York Times column falsifying the history of the Pentagon Papers as part of an attempt to discredit Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. I am tired and sick of war. (Photo by David Shankbone via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0) Are you hopeful that, as much change as we’ve gone through in the news industry, the First Amendment will prevail and we’ll continue to see the press’s watchdog role played in different forms, through different business models, online and elsewhere? Neel Bate stumbled across his first copy of Bachelor magazine at a Hollywood Boulevard drugstore. What concerns me is the possibility that General Flynn was essentially saying to a foreign nation that is adverse to our interests: Pay no attention to what the president of the United States is doing, we’ll take care of that down the road. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. TOP IMAGE: The facade of the Newseum in Washington, DC, features the First Amendment. The military don't start wars. Program at Yale, found that 51 percent of students favor their school having speech codes and trigger warnings. It was March 1937, and Bate—a Seattle transplant in his early twenties who worked as an erotic artist—had just come into his sexuality. August 30, 2017. Abrams represented The New York Times in 1971 during the Pentagon Papers case, Judith Miller in the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Standard & Poor's and Lorillard Tobacco Company. Do you think the press can do a better job of using anonymous sources? That goes well beyond anything President Nixon did. So the more important the person and the more the person has a potentially direct impact on American public policy, let alone American national security, the more defensible it is in certain circumstances to find out information about his behavior and to reveal it to the public. Now I have to say, I don’t think that President Trump would behave any differently than he does, or would have any different views than he does, whether or not this campus plague of speech suppression had occurred. At Fordham University in 2012 here in New York, for example, the Republican Club wanted to invite Ann Coulter to speak and they weren’t allowed to do it. CJR: It’s interesting that you bring up that civics course. Wife: Efrat (docent at the Guggenheim Museum) Son: Dan Abrams … Now, we don’t know how much is talk and what if anything he may do as president apart from the impact of his words. So, there are areas of governmental power and authority which could be called upon if a president were of a mind to do so and was willing to engage in a still more overheated public debate about the bona fides of any effort to do so. He argued for Citizens United during the 2010 Supreme Court case. That in and of itself is important. The Department of Justice has authority to determine when to bring Espionage Act claims. So, it’s still early—very early—in the Trump administration, but the signs are troubling, and the repeated effort to delegitimize the press as a whole is something new and extremely disturbing. Photo via PublicDomainPictures.net. So, yes, on campuses one of the main victims, and they are victims, of suppression of speech has been conservative groups. The Pentagon Papers revelations dealt with a discrete topic, ... Floyd Abrams’ entire argument about WikiLeaks is premised on his claim that these diplomatic cables demonstrate no abuse of … We need people who are educated about the Constitution in general and the First Amendment in particular at young ages, not the moment they get into college. Floyd Abrams, the prominent First Amendment attorney who represented The New York Times in the landmark Pentagon Papers Supreme Court case, is coming to ASU to discuss freedom of speech on campus. I don’t believe that it’s illegitimate for the press to avail itself of libel law in certain extraordinary circumstances. Floyd Abrams, the most famous First Amendment lawyer in the country, might surprise his admirers with his representation of a company regarded as … Abrams: Yes. Lawyer and author Floyd Abrams — who over the course of a career spanning more than half a century has argued and won many significant Supreme Court First Amendment cases that protected freedom of speech, including the Pentagon Papers case — took the stage Tuesday night to speak on why now, more than ever, free speech must be protected. I think there were documents, highly classified documents, made available by Snowden that had nothing to do with domestic surveillance, and a good deal to do with the ordinary and entirely proper efforts of the United States to protect itself in a dangerous world. Attorney Floyd Abrams, who represented The New York Times in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case and went on to become America’s leading First Amendment litigator, talked with CJR about President Trump’s unprecedented assault on the press, whether leaks from government officials are appropriate, and how the growing acceptance of speech restrictions is an ominous sign for our democracy. Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Dismantles False Narrative. Mr. Abrams, a senior partner in the firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case. That’s one of the big advantages of having written the Bill of Rights down. I don’t blame college kids who get in and want people to behave nicely to each other. In peace, sons bury their fathers. Accessibility links Skip to main content That would be highly improper and perhaps illegal. Floyd Abrams. And to be clear, I mean First Amendment norms on the broadest level not just legal violations of the First Amendment but what I referred to earlier as the spirit of the First Amendment; that is an acceptance of the notion that people will have a lot of different views on a lot of different subjects, many of which will be difficult or even impossible to seem to live with, but which we at our best have always protected. In the fifty years that America’s preeminent First Amendment attorney, Floyd Abrams, has practiced law, varying challenges to freedom of expression have emerged in … We never said Congress could limit the press; why do we have to say it can’t? I would say that the Pentagon Papers case of 1971 - in which the government tried to block the The New York Times and The Washington Post that they obtained from a secret study of how we got involved in the war in Vietnam - that is probably the most important case. While the press is understandably used to defending libel suits, it ought to bear in mind that it has rights, too. Teddy Roosevelt authorized a criminal proceeding to be brought against Joseph Pulitzer for certain stories about the construction of the Panama Canal. By Kevin Gosztola . And this one is not Donald Trump’s fault, or one party’s fault, or one view of the country’s fault. There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter. Stimulus check updates: Senate OKs fast-track of coronavirus relief package; Biden meets with House Dems in push for $1.9 trillion plan Because we have a First Amendment, I think it will continue to protect us against the widest range of challenges. Its glory is all moonshine. His career matured in the late 1960s, right after the Supreme Court decided New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964). Only the dead have seen the end of the war. CJR: A 2015 survey of some 800 undergraduate students, sponsored by the William F. Buckley Jr. Abrams: Well, yes it does. Abrams: What I’ve said is that there are situations that I could imagine in which statements made by the president or people high in his administration could give rise to libel litigation. Floyd Abrams Sees Trump’s Anti-Media Tweets as Double-Edged Swords Floyd Abrams at his Manhattan office. Newsroom Guidelines News Tips Abrams: First, let me say that I’m not in favor of all leaks. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. CJR: I know you’re busy, so let’s get straight to it. I don’t think this is a fake news problem, this is a credibility problem. Floyd Abrams, the prominent First Amendment attorney who represented The New York Times in the landmark Pentagon Papers Supreme Court case, is coming to Arizona State University to discuss freedom of speech on campus. Where there is a way to identify why this source is credible, without revealing the identity of the source, or providing too much identity on how to determine who the source is, it should be followed. All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it. Abrams: He could do some of the things that President Nixon made some efforts at doing. A lot of bad speech is nice speech. Last year, the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem was shouted down at San Francisco State. Basically the school said it would be alright if you had her on a panel. Is there some relationship between what’s happening with restrictions on speech on the left and what’s happening on the right? And 35 percent said that the First Amendment does not protect “hate speech.” Does that make it easier for the president and his administration to attack speech they disapprove of and the press in general? One way they can do that, The New York Times and other publication routinely do, is use numbers. Abrams: I couldn’t agree more. In his new book, “The Soul of the First Amendment,… And we certainly haven’t had any president who has made as a central element of his presentation while in office a critique of such venom and threat as we’ve heard in the last month. 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