Cass R. Sunstein, Columnist

Trump's Assault on the First Amendment

The president is challenging what James Madison called "the only effectual guardian of every other right."

All in for "prior restraint."

Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
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Above all else, the First Amendment is a barrier to “prior restraints” – injunctions and licensing requirements aimed at preventing speech from entering the public domain at all.

Just as a new Steven Spielberg film, "The Post," is celebrating the vindication of that principle in the Pentagon Papers case, President Donald Trump’s lawyers have formally demanded that a publisher cease publication of a new book.