President Donald Trump’s crackdown on lawyers is having a chilling effect on his opponents’ ability to defend themselves or challenge his actions in court, according to people who say they are struggling to find legal representation as a result of his challenges.
Biden-era officials said they’re having trouble findinglawyers willing to defend them. The volunteers and small nonprofits forming the ground troops of the legal resistance to Trump administration actions say that the well-resourced law firms that once would have backed them are now steering clear. The result is an extraordinary threat to fundamental constitutional rights of due process and legal representation, they said — and a far weaker effort to challenge Trump’s actions in court than during his first term.
Legal scholars say no previous U.S. administration has taken such concerted action against the legal establishment, with Trump’s predecessors in both parties typically respecting the constitutionally enshrined tenet that everyone deserves effective representation in court and that lawyers cannot be targeted simply for the cases and clients they take on.
Trump has used executive orders to target powerful law firms that have challenged him. The orders have sought to strip them of their business by banning their lawyers from government buildings and barring companies who have federal contracts from employing the law firms.
Trump on Friday ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to expand the campaign by sanctioning lawyers who “engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation” against his administration.
Legal scholars say there is little precedent in modern U.S. history for Trump’s actions. But the president is following a playbook from other countries whose leaders have sought to undermine democratic systems and the rule of law, including Russia, Turkey and Hungary. Leaders in those countries have similarly attacked lawyers with the effect of hollowing out a pillar of justice systems to expand their power without violating existing laws. They have successfully used the strategy to blast away their political opposition and any effort to counter their actions through courts.
“The law firms have to behave themselves,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting on Monday. “They behave very badly, very wrongly.”
Trump’s targets say they are feeling the heat….