"The Truth Will Out."

“I will represent pro bono anyone #Trump sues for exercising their free speech rights. Many other lawyers have offered to join me.” - @BoutrousTed

Weeks before the 2016 Presidential election, Gibson Dunn’s co-head of litigation (and fellow USD Law grad) Ted Boutrous took this unusually public Twitter stance against a major party nominee. We knew then that this was no ordinary nominee, and we saw unusually public stances coming from many places. Even so, a well-respected Big Law leader making this declaration drew attention from lawyers and non-lawyers alike all over the country. I reached out to Ted in November to find time to talk. I wanted the story behind this tweet and I wanted to learn what happened behind the scenes in the weeks that followed.

But since November, more has happened than most of us could have imagined. We’ve seen rapid changes in what free speech means and how it’s treated – from the government’s outright hostility toward journalism, to upending established norms in how the government and the press co-exist, to the administration’s communication with the public, to putting into question the basic assumption that what the President says is true.

Ted is deeply involved with each of these issues. In this interview, he explains how he got where he is and what he’s thinking about now. We talk about Twitter and the First Amendment. And we explore what you can do now if you care about journalism.

Find more from Ted on Twitter at @BoutrousTed.