American Bar Association to publish controversial report on Trump being a ‘libel bully’

Source: Washington Post

The American Bar Association earlier this week told the Erik Wemple Blog that it had sought a correction from the New York Times after it reported that the association “refused” to publish a thorough report by First Amendment lawyer Susan Seager on Donald Trump’s history of filing libel suits and losing them.

“We did not refuse to publish it,” ABA spokeswoman Carol Stevens told the Erik Wemple Blog. Instead, the association merely made some “suggested” edits to calm some of the piece’s more “inflammatory” moments, said Stevens. Protestations notwithstanding, the story stuck. “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah even not-joked about it: “Take a second to absorb this: A group of lawyers won’t publish a report on how Trump often sues because they’re afraid he might sue them. You do realize I cannot make a joke about that, because that would be the joke that I would make.”

Well, whatever: The ABA is now going to run the piece in its “Communications Lawyer” publication, where it was headed before this imbroglio materialized. A statement addresses this issue:

The policy of the American Bar Association gives its entities the right to publish their newsletters without Association permission. In accordance with that policy, next week the ABA Forum on Communications Law will publish a newsletter article on presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and his frequent use of speech-related lawsuits. In the past week, there has been inaccurate media coverage of this matter.


Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/10/28/american-bar-association-to-publish-controversial-report-on-trump-being-a-libel-bully/?utm_term=.802f60a35600