Trump has given up our rights for Lent
Donald Trump has almost certainly never read Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t in his 78 years heard and taken inspiration from “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” (The New York Times):
President Trump broadened his campaign of retaliation against lawyers he dislikes with a new memorandum that threatens to use government power to punish any law firms that, in his view, unfairly challenge his administration.
The memorandum directs the heads of the Justice and Homeland Security Departments to “seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation against the United States” or in matters that come before federal agencies.
Mr. Trump issued the order late Friday night, after a tumultuous week for the American legal community in which one of the country’s premier firms, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, struck a deal with the White House to spare the company from a punitive decree issued by Mr. Trump the previous week.
Trump cannot obey the law and will not uphold the Constitution, but nobody knows more than him about “frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation.” He ran for president in 2024 to avoid spending the rest of his life in a jumpsuit matching his slathered-on complexion and to exact retribution against perceived enemies. He’s making good on both.
The biggest legal thorn in Trump’s side, attorney Marc Elias, had a pithy response last night to the “deal” Trump stuck with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
May we all be as defiant when the brownshirts come for us. Elias went further:
Anna Bower, Senior Editor at Lawfare, posted a thread on Trump’s attacks on the legal profession:
So go out and hug a civil rights attorney, howboutit?
Trump has give up people’s rights for Lent
It’s Lent. It’s spring. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and it’s “first they came for” season.
First it was non-citizens with criminal records rounded up for deportation. But the Trump DHS was ecumenical about that and is rounding up plenty of non-criminal non-citizens if they’d overstayed a visa by even a single day as Venezualans bearing benign tattoos. And non-citizens with expunged convictions. Then it was immigrants granted refugee status. And Canadians with visas not “properly processed” and German tourists for no clear reason. And green card holders and doctors with H1B visas. And now travel advisories for foreigners visiting the U.S. from Canada, England, Germany, Denmark, and Finland.
Trump 2.0 started with non-citizens. Now it’s moved on to lawyers. Don’t think that if this administration sees you as an enemy, it won’t in time come for you on whatever they can “Trump” up.
* * * * *
Have you fought the coup today?
National Day of Action, Saturday, April 5
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions