Trump’s Effort to Stop Publication of Scathing Book is a Break in Precedent

Legal experts and historians said the decision by President Trump to threaten “imminent” legal action against a publishing house, a journalist and a former aide represented a remarkable break with recent precedent and could have a chilling effect on free-speech rights, according to Slate.

The threats did not appear to work, at least as far as the scathing book by Michael Wolff. His publisher announced Thursday that publication had been moved forward four days to Friday because of what they described as “unprecedented demand.”

Reporters Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey talked to Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University, who likened Trump’s actions this week to those of Richard M. Nixon.

“Though several presidents — including Jimmy Carter and Theodore Roosevelt — have sued for libel after leaving office, it is uncommon and potentially damaging for a current occupant of the Oval Office to try to use the powers of the presidency to take on personal and political rivals, Brinkley said.”

Read the Slate article.