Trump's lawsuit against a book publisher is a dangerous escalation

This particular lawsuit is frivolous and almost certainly won't hold up in court, if it is refiled and allowed to proceed. But the point here isn’t to win legal cases, it’s to tar and burden those targeted, make them squirm and press them to settle (which CBS and others have seemed all too willing to do), and set a broader example that will leave other institutions fearful to publish any article or book that might stoke fury from the president. This is how authoritarianism works: You don’t have to imprison every dissident; you don’t have to sue every newspaper or publishing house. You just do enough of it so that everyone else censors themselves without having to be asked.

- SUMMER LOPEZ GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

As an organization that champions writers facing legal threats and imprisonment for their writing around the world, we at PEN America view a U.S. president filing a suit claiming a book is “malicious, defamatory, and disparaging” as a grave warning. We are at risk of losing one of our most precious freedoms: the freedom to write.