Civil Liberties Lawyer: News Media Should Sue Trump

The news media should sue President Donald Trump for excluding some outlets from a White House press briefing last week, said former leader of the New York Civil Liberties Union Normal Siegel. On Friday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer held a briefing without pool reporters from the New York Times, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Daily News, Politico, BuzzFeed, BBC, the Huffington Post and the Guardian. Time and the Associated Press boycotted the briefing to show support. “You give censors an inch,” Siegel told ABA Journal, “and then they take a yard, and then they take a mile and then you wake up one morning and you don’t have your rights anymore.” Lawyers and First Amendment activists joined Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) at a news conference in front of the New York Times building this weekend to protest the Trump administration’s move.