Lawyers’ Fear of Trump Proves Their Point About Bullies

By Noah Feldman, Bloomberg View

As a lawyer, I’m embarrassed that the American Bar Association commissioned a report about Donald Trump’s use of libel threats , then refused to publish it out of fear that Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, would sue the organization for libel. The episode, however, dramatizes how effective libel threats are in chilling speech — and how they work in real life, driven by the professional caution that lawyers cultivate on behalf of their clients.

The report , ordered by the ABA’s media-law committee, didn’t pull any punches. Its author, Susan E. Seager, titled it “Donald J. ...