Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
The White House's radical offensive against law firms isn't just about law firms
When pressed, Donald Trump has said he wants law firms “to behave themselves.” It's worth appreciating what that means in practice.
https://bsky.app/profile/tommyboy0690.bsky.social/post/3lle6sjilw22l
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/white-houses-radical-offensive-law-firms-isnt-just-law-firms-rcna198235
Donald Trump told Fox News earlier this month that he intended to use the power of his office to go after several prominent law firms. Evidently, he was serious. NBC News reported on the president’s latest move against the legal profession.
,,,,,There’s no great mystery behind the motivation. The single great obstacle between Trump and his radical goals is not Congress. It’s not public opinion. It’s not norms or traditional institutional constraints. It’s not shame or fear of embarrassment.
It’s the courts — or more to the point, opponents of his agenda who’ve filed suit and brought their concerns to the courts, where the White House has been losing a lot over the last several weeks.
In response, the president, his team and their allies have launched an extraordinary political offensive intended to smear judges and undermine the integrity of the federal judiciary, but that campaign is only half of the equation. The other half is focused on bringing some of the nation’s largest law firms to heel.
Deborah Pearlstein, a visiting professor of law and public affairs at Princeton and the director of the university’s Program in Law and Public Policy, wrote for The New York Times, “Of all of the American legal institutions now facing sustained attack, none would seem better positioned to push back against Mr. Trump’s strongman tactics than this class of wealthy and politically connected firms, known collectively as Big Law. Counsel to the world’s most powerful corporations, they are engaged in every sector of the marketplace and central to ensuring that the United States and global economy continue to spin. Yet where many ordinary judges, law school deans and public interest attorneys of both political parties have found the courage to push back against Mr. Trump’s anti-constitutional histrionics, Big Law has largely stayed silent or worse.”
It’s not too late for the firms to put a fight. Whether they want to remains to be seen.
Trump signed an executive order [Tuesday] punishing a law firm that hired Andrew Weissmann, a Trump critic who was a prosecutor on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team that investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election. The order directs that employees of the firm Jenner & Block be stripped of security clearances and have their access to federal buildings limited and that federal agencies terminate any contracts with the firm.
,,,,,There’s no great mystery behind the motivation. The single great obstacle between Trump and his radical goals is not Congress. It’s not public opinion. It’s not norms or traditional institutional constraints. It’s not shame or fear of embarrassment.
It’s the courts — or more to the point, opponents of his agenda who’ve filed suit and brought their concerns to the courts, where the White House has been losing a lot over the last several weeks.
In response, the president, his team and their allies have launched an extraordinary political offensive intended to smear judges and undermine the integrity of the federal judiciary, but that campaign is only half of the equation. The other half is focused on bringing some of the nation’s largest law firms to heel.
Deborah Pearlstein, a visiting professor of law and public affairs at Princeton and the director of the university’s Program in Law and Public Policy, wrote for The New York Times, “Of all of the American legal institutions now facing sustained attack, none would seem better positioned to push back against Mr. Trump’s strongman tactics than this class of wealthy and politically connected firms, known collectively as Big Law. Counsel to the world’s most powerful corporations, they are engaged in every sector of the marketplace and central to ensuring that the United States and global economy continue to spin. Yet where many ordinary judges, law school deans and public interest attorneys of both political parties have found the courage to push back against Mr. Trump’s anti-constitutional histrionics, Big Law has largely stayed silent or worse.”
It’s not too late for the firms to put a fight. Whether they want to remains to be seen.
5 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
