I don’t think DOJ is going to get its prior restraint against the bookstores, Simon & Schuster, or John Bolton. Still… (1/x)

Events of the past few days really make you wonder whether it might not have been better if the Bush and Obama DOJs hadn’t persuaded courts to defer blindly to the executive branch’s classification decisions. (2/x)

Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to argue, as the Bush and Obama DOJs did, that government employees never have a First Amendment right to disclose info the executive branch has classified. (3/x)

Also, it would have been better if the Bush and Obama DOJs hadn’t argued that there is never a First Amendment right of access to classified info. (4/x)

It really would have been better if previous admins had recognized some substantial role for the courts in protecting the First Amendment rights of government employees in the national-security context, and in protecting the public’s right to know. (5/x)

Maybe our collective experience with the Trump admin will lead the next admin to revisit some of the legal positions that the Bush and Obama admins staked out. Something to hope for, anyway. (6/6)