journalists across the nation are sounding the alarm bells about this case. this is the new indictment against julian assange. he was previously charged in april with one count of conspiracy for allegedly helping army intelligence professionals leak top secret information in 2010. this week, trump s justice department charged assange with an additional 17 counts under the espionage act. that is a significant change. it is why top editors of the new york times and washington post and elsewhere are all concerned about the first amendment implications. so let s get into this with acclaimed first amendment attorney. he kepted cnn and jim acosta in
questions whether that was related to a probe into leaks of the details of a foiled terror plot last year. joining me is constitutional first amendment attorney, floyd abrams, author of friend of the court on the front lines with the first amendment. welcome to you. i ve got to say, this whole transparency thing with the president is crumbling, isn t it, because first of all let s go back two weeks. the whole guantanamo bay issue rumbles on, a place he said he would shut down but didn t. then we have benghazi, where we have apparently 12 corrections in terms of talking points. then we have the irs targeting tea partiers and people who use the word patriot or say they want to improve their country, and now we have this. we have the justice department targeting a.p., the associated press. what do you make of all this? how transparent is this? because it seems to me to be pretty nontransparent. look, i don t think the one we learned about today is so much a matter of transparency as
when president obama first took office he pledged to make transparency a hallmark of his white house. listen to what he said in january of 2009, just one day into his first term. i want to make government accountable, make it transparent so that the american people can know exactly what decisions are being made, how they re being made, and whether their interests are being well served. let me say it as simply as i can. transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency. hm. now the obama administration is caught in the middle of a first amendment war between the justice department and the associated press. the a.p. says the government secretly collected phone records of reporters during a two-month period last year and it questions whether that was related to a probe into leaks of the details of a foiled terror plot last user. joining me is constitutional first amendment attorney, floyd abrams, author of friend of the court on the front lines with the fir
related to a probe into leaks of the details of a foiled terror plot last year. joining me is constitutional first amendment attorney, floyd abrams, author of friend of the court on the front lines with the first amendment. welcome to you. i ve got to say, this whole transparency thing with the president is crumbling, isn t it, because first of all let s go back two weeks. the whole guantanamo bay issue rumbles on, a place he said he would shut down but didn t. then we have benghazi, where we have apparently 12 corrections in terms of talking points. then we have the irs targeting tea partiers and people who use the word patriot or say they want to improve their country, and now we have this. we have the justice department targeting a.p., the associated press. what do you make of all this? how transparent is this? because it seems to me to be pretty nontransparent. look, i don t think the one we learned about today is so