{"id":840,"date":"2025-03-24T11:56:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T11:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/24\/the-authoritarian-playbook-trump-targets-judges-lawyers-and-law-itself-the-guardian-us\/"},"modified":"2025-03-24T11:56:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T11:56:30","slug":"the-authoritarian-playbook-trump-targets-judges-lawyers-and-law-itself-the-guardian-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/24\/the-authoritarian-playbook-trump-targets-judges-lawyers-and-law-itself-the-guardian-us\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The authoritarian playbook\u2019: Trump targets judges, lawyers \u2026 and law itself – The Guardian US"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A<\/span>s Donald Trump<\/a> aggressively seeks revenge against multiple foes in the US, he\u2019s waging a vendetta using executive orders and social media against judges, law firms, prosecutors, the press and other vital American institutions to stifle dissent and exact retribution.<\/p>\n

Legal scholars say the president\u2019s menacing attacks, some of which Trump\u2019s biggest campaign backer, the billionaire Elon Musk<\/a>, has echoed, are aimed at silencing critics of his radical agenda and undercut the rule of law in authoritarian ways that expand his own powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s moves are from the authoritarian playbook,\u201d said the Harvard law school lecturer and retired Massachusetts judge Nancy Gertner. \u201cYou need to delegitimize institutions that could be critics. Trump is seeking to use the power of the presidency to delegitimize institutions including universities, law firms, judges and others. It\u2019s the opposite of American democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a stunning move on Tuesday, Trump railed that a top Washington DC judge ought to be impeached for ruling to halt the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans allegedly including gang members, sparking the chief justice of the supreme court, John Roberts, hours later to issue a strong statement<\/a> against calls to impeach judges for their rulings.<\/p>\n

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Legal scholars sharply criticize other attacks by Trump and the Maga world on judges who have issued rulings against executive orders or Musk\u2019s \u201cdepartment of government efficiency\u201d (Doge), with the goal of weakening the judicial branch to boost Trump\u2019s powers.<\/p>\n

Fears about Trump\u2019s war on his critics rose this month as the president issued executive orders penalizing three big law firms including Covington & Burling and Perkins Coie. Critics say Trump\u2019s sanctions against the firms were sparked by their clients, respectively ex-special counsel Jack Smith, who brought charges against Trump for trying to subvert his 2020 election loss, and Hillary Clinton\u2019s 2016 presidential campaign, which hired the firm that helped pay for a dossier alleging collusion between Russia and Trump\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

Those executive orders, which included barring some firms from entering federal buildings, interacting with agencies and taking away security clearances from some lawyers, were widely seen as punitive measures to hurt them financially.<\/p>\n

District Judge Beryl Howell on 12 March blocked the Trump administration<\/a> from enforcing key parts of its order against Perkins Coie, which she stated \u201cruns head-on into the wall of first amendment protections\u201d.<\/p>\n

The third law firm Trump targeted with an executive order was Paul Weiss Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, whose former partner Mark Pomerantz later tried to build a criminal case against Trump when he worked at the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office. But Trump\u2019s executive order was reversed on 19 March after the firm agreed to provide $40m in pro bono services to support administration priorities.<\/p>\n

Legal scholars have also denounced justice department firings or demotions of some two dozen lawyers who worked on cases against Trump allies convicted for attacking the Capitol on 6 January 2021 in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden\u2019s election victory.<\/p>\n

In a stark show of vindictiveness and historical revisionism about his role inciting the January 6 attack on the Capitol and baseless claims that his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden was rigged, Trump addressed a justice department gathering on 14 March and proclaimed he intended to end the \u201cweaponization\u201d of the law against him.<\/p>\n

In an angry and rambling talk, Trump singled out among others Jack Smith, to whom Covington provided pro bono help, and the former Perkins lawyer Marc Elias, a key figure in fighting Trump\u2019s false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent.<\/p>\n

Trump blasted them and others who had investigated him as \u201cbad people, really bad people \u2026 They tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and third-world country, but in the end, the thugs failed and the truth won.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after Trump spoke, the Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who taught constitutional law for two decades, gave a sharp rebuttal at a rally outside the justice department. \u201cNo other president in American history has stood in the Department of Justice to proclaim an agenda of criminal prosecution and retaliation against his political foes,\u201d Raskin said.<\/p>\n

Legal experts say Trump\u2019s attacks on lawyers and judges are dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sheer vindictiveness with which Trump and his allies have targeted lawyers \u2013 both in government service and in private practice \u2013 and judges has disrupted lives, inflicted costs and even raised security concerns,\u201d said Daniel Richman, a Columbia law professor and former federal prosecutor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure some are intimidated, and that certainly seems the intent. Others will cozy up to him. But the more this occurs \u2013 and I don\u2019t imagine it will stop \u2013 the more it will look like Trump\u2019s problem is less with those who practice law and more with law itself. Even allies who cheer his tactics may soon wonder how they would fare in a lawless world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other legal scholars express grave concerns with Trump\u2019s widening attacks on law firms, judges and other institutions that have criticized his policies and power grabs.<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>Trump at his hush-money trial with his lawyers Todd Blanche, left, and Emil Bove, right. Blanche is now deputy attorney general and Bove is principal associate deputy attorney general.<\/span> Photograph: Michael M Santiago\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s sanctions against Covington and Perkins serve two purposes. In the immediate term, he gets revenge against two firms that have offended him,\u201d said NYU law professor Stephen Gillers.<\/p>\n

Gillers stressed that these orders also \u201cwarn other law firms that they face the same punishment if they cross Trump by representing plaintiffs challenging his executive orders. In fact, the executive orders should be called by their rightful name: vendettas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gillers added that the \u201conly remaining institutional threat to Trump\u2019s quest for total power is the judiciary \u2026 Lawyers are the gatekeepers for access to judicial power. We see a double-barreled strategy: attack the judges who criticize or rule against Trump as a warning to other judges, and attack law firms as a warning to other law firms that might take Trump to court.\u201d<\/p>\n

The surge in Trump administration<\/a> attacks on judges has been fueled by multiple court rulings that have delayed or scuttled Trump\u2019s executive orders and Musk\u2019s Doge operation to shrink the federal government with scant regard for congressional and judicial powers<\/p>\n

For instance, Stephen Miller, Trump\u2019s deputy chief of staff, last week wrote on X: \u201cUnder the precedents now being established by radical rogue judges, a district court in Hawaii could enjoin troop movements in Iraq. Judges have no authority to administer the executive branch. Or to nullify the results of a national election.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Judges who have ruled against Trump have witnessed an uptick in threats. A bomb threat was even made in March against a sister of the conservative supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett after she joined three liberal justices and Chief Justice Roberts in a ruling that went against Trump.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s rightwing allies in Congress have jumped into the legal fray with calls to impeach certain judges who have ruled against the administration and some of Doge\u2019s radical cost-cutting moves<\/p>\n

After the New York district judge Paul Engelmayer blocked Doge on 8 February from gaining access to millions of sensitive and personal treasury records, Musk baselessly accused him of being a \u201ccorrupt judge protecting corruption\u201d on X, the social media site he owns where he has about 200 million followers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe needs to be impeached NOW!\u201d Musk said on 9 February.<\/p>\n

With Musk nearby in the Oval Office last month, Trump echoed these attacks by the world\u2019s richest man, who donated close to $300m to his campaign:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems hard to believe that a judge could say, \u2018We don\u2019t want you to do that,\u2019 so maybe we have to look at the judges because I think that\u2019s a very serious violation,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

To bolster those charges, Derrick Van Order, a Wisconsin Republican congressman, filed an impeachment resolution against the judge, whose ruling came after more than a dozen Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit arguing Doge could not legally access treasury records with personal details of millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

Former federal judges and scholars say that Trump and Musk have pushed the legal envelope in ways that are unprecedented in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you flood the zone with scores of executive orders, many of which were clearly based on questionable legal grounds, no one should be surprised that they\u2019re not withstanding judicial scrutiny,\u201d said John Jones, an ex-federal judge who is now president of Dickinson College.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn additional problem the administration has is that it\u2019s losing credibility with the courts by continually making disingenuous arguments in support of these orders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other critics voice similar concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s actions aimed at the role of lawyers and the courts appear to be part of a battle to reduce the judicial branch to being subordinate to the president,\u201d said Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission who now teaches law at American University. \u201cIf Trump is able to punish lawyers who oppose him and ignore the courts, he will be only steps away from becoming the king he seems to want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

On another front where Trump is eager to snuff out criticism and dissent, the president escalated his attacks on the media in his recent justice department speech by asserting without evidence that some major reporting outlets are \u201cillegal\u201d and \u201ccorrupt\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese networks and these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative,\u201d Trump added, lashing out at CNN and MSNBC as corrupt.<\/p>\n

Trump added in conspiratorial fashion: \u201cIt has to stop, it has to be illegal, it\u2019s influencing judges and it\u2019s really changing law, and it just cannot be legal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s widening attacks on the press, the courts, law firms and other American institutions damage the rule of law in Raskin\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is attacking any source of potential institutional opposition,\u201d Raskin said. \u201cAnyone who offers any kind of resistance is a target of Trump\u2019s. We\u2019re seeing an explosion of Trump\u2019s incorrigible lawlessness.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Donald Trump aggressively seeks revenge against multiple foes in the US, he\u2019s waging a vendetta using executive orders and social media against judges, law firms, prosecutors, the press and other vital American institutions to stifle dissent and exact retribution. Legal scholars say the president\u2019s menacing attacks, some of which Trump\u2019s biggest campaign backer, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}