(AFP) – US President Donald Trump’s offensive against lawyers and law firms who have crossed swords with him in the past is being met with a mixture of capitulation and defiance. The 78-year-old Trump, the first convicted felon to serve in the White House, has a long and acrimonious history with the justice system. Since taking office, the Republican president has moved to settle scores with the law firms that have represented his political foes or dragged him into court on civil or criminal charges.
Trump has signed executive orders targeting four so-called “Big Law” firms so far, suspending the security clearances of their attorneys and ordering the termination of their federal government contracts. Nancy Northup, CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the president is seeking to “intimidate lawyers with threats of financial sanctions, disbarment, and worse, simply for doing their jobs.” “The goal is to bully lawyers out of taking on any case that challenges the administration, leaving everyday Americans with no recourse to fight back,” Northup said.
Trump’s first target was Covington & Burling, a Washington-based law firm which did pro bono work for Jack Smith, the former special counsel who brought two criminal cases against Trump, both of which were dropped after he won November’s election. The president retaliated next against Seattle-based Perkins Coie over its work with Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, claiming it had engaged in “dishonest and dangerous activity.” During the campaign, Perkins Coie hired a research agency that produced the since discredited “Steele Dossier” that alleged Trump had colluded with Russia. Perkins Coie struck back, filing a complaint in federal court. District Judge Beryl Howell issued a restraining order temporarily blocking Trump’s sanctions against the firm, describing them as “retaliatory” and saying they “send chills down my spine.”
While Perkins Coie went to court, another targeted law firm, Paul Weiss, cut a deal with Trump that includes providing $40 million in pro bono legal services to “support the administration’s initiatives.” Defending the move in an open letter to his 2,500 employees, Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp said Trump’s sanctions “could easily have destroyed our firm.” Randall Eliason, a former assistant US attorney, condemned Paul Weiss’s decision to strike a deal with Trump as “shameful.” “It could have made the choice that Perkins Coie made… to stand up to Trump,” Eliason said. “Instead, it chose protecting its own financial interests over protecting the rule of law.”
A former Perkins Coie partner, Marc Elias, was the target of another broadside by Trump. In a memorandum last week, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to sanction lawyers and law firms “who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States.” Elias was singled out and accused of “grossly unethical misconduct” for his alleged role in the compiling of the Steele Dossier. Elias, who now heads the Elias Law Group, said he would not be cowed. “President Trump is attempting to dismantle the Constitution and attack the rule of law in his obsessive pursuit of retribution against his political opponents,” he said. “There will be no negotiation with this White House about the clients we represent or the lawsuits we bring on their behalf.”
Democratic lawmaker Jamie Raskin, who led the impeachment of Trump for inciting an insurrection — the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol — said the president was operating from an authoritarian playbook. “When courts block an autocratic executive or someone with dictatorial ambitions, they begin to attack the judges, they attack the lawyers, they attack the law firms,” Raskin said in an interview with MSNBC. “That’s what’s happening in America right now,” he said. “And so the whole country has got to stand up for the independence of the judiciary and for the rule of law.”
– Chris Lefkow
© 2024 AFP
