3 days Ago
“The president of the United States has essentially declared war on the rule of law in America.” Those are the words of J. Michael Luttig, a widely respected former conservative federal judge.
His alarm, on MSNBC, is no exaggeration. Our complex legal system -- lawyers and judges, cases and courts, depositions and decisions -- has emerged as the strongest guardrail thwarting the president’s drive for unlimited power. Which is precisely why he’s launched his scorched-earth campaign.
According to the Washington Post, the Trump administration “faces more than 130 lawsuits over its efforts to dismantle agencies and diversity programs, freeze spending, fire federal workers and deport immigrants without due process.” And federal judges -- who enjoy lifetime appointments and are less subject to intimidation than political operatives or business executives -- have issued more than three dozen injunctions halting administration initiatives. This is driving Trump crazy.
He’s called for the impeachment of judges who make rulings he doesn’t like and tried to remove others from critical cases. His toadies on Capitol Hill have already filed charges against federal judge James E. Boasberg, a particular target of Trump’s wrath because he’s questioning the president’s right to deport undocumented immigrants without proper hearings.
Elon Musk, Trump’s enforcer, is encouraging the vendetta, donating campaign funds to lawmakers who back the impeachment effort. Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, will hold hearings on what he’s called “activist judges” who are blocking Trump’s agenda.
There has been some backlash, with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rebuking Trump for his impeachment threats and The New York Times warning: “The evident goal is to spread anxiety and fear among judges and keep them from fulfilling their constitutional duty to insist that the Trump administration follow the law.” But the whole point of Trump’s campaign is to bully and intimidate, to foster a chilling effect among judges who might oppose him. That effect is insidious because it is so invisible.
What questions are not asked? What evidence is not uncovered? What decisions are not made? Judges are only the most prominent targets of Trump’s tirades. Deborah Pearlstein, a Princeton law professor, catalogued the range of his other assaults in the Times: “He has moved to purge the Department of Justice of all but those he perceives as loyal to him personally, demanded changes to law school curriculums ..
. attacked by name public-interest attorneys and bar associations that oppose his policies, and inched perilously close to defying court orders outright. In recent weeks Mr.
Trump has also gone after the nation’s leading law firms -- Covington & Burling; Perkins Coie; Paul, Weiss; and many more -- with measures meant to hobble their ability to do business.” Trump’s strategy is always the same -- blame, blast, bluster -- and it’s working. “Democrats tell me they’ve been hearing from lawyers, corporate employees, law firms, and constituents, alike, about the fear of retaliation from Trump -- and why people aren’t doing more to stand up to him,” reports Leigh Ann Caldwell in Puck.
“Law firms are ‘running scared,’ said one attorney with a background in Democratic politics. ‘They’re being extremely careful about cases they take on, they are carefully checking conflicts of interests in cases and being extremely cautious about the people they hire.’” Perhaps the most telling example of “running scared” is the law firm Paul, Weiss, long a fixture in Democratic circles, which quickly capitulated to Trump’s threats, agreeing to end its DEI policies and donate $40 million in pro bono services to Trump’s favored causes.
The chilling effect echoed through the words of Brad Karp, the firm’s chairman, when he explained his surrender: “No one in the wider world can appreciate how stressful it is to confront an executive order like this until one is directed at you.” As these events were unfolding, I attended a college production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caeser,” and I felt like I was listening to an op-ed piece penned by a defender of the constitutional order, pleading with others to resist an aspiring dictator. As Cassius says of Caesar: “Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world “Like a Colossus, and we petty men “Walk under his huge legs and peep about “To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
“Men at some time are masters of their fates. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, “But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” Will the guardians of the legal system summon the courage to resist Trump, to be “masters of their fates”? Or will they become unmoored underlings, petty and dishonorable?.
