Americans United joins effort to protect legal community from Trump attacks

Americans United in late March blasted efforts by President Donald Trump to intimidate members of the legal community.

Trump issued a memo and executive orders that target law firms, legal organizations and lawyers who challenge his administration’s actions. Some law firms have bowed to the pressure and have said they will stop filing legal challenges to Trump actions.

But others are determined to keep fighting — and that includes Americans United.

“Americans United condemns President Trump’s threats to the legal profession and joins with thousands of members of the nation’s legal community in refusing to be intimidated,” AU President and CEO Rachel Laser said in a statement. “For nearly 80 years, AU has defended religious freedom and the separation of church and state by challenging the government when it oversteps. We will —as always — continue to defend the Constitution, the rule of law and our cherished American experiment without regard to threats.”

AU also signed a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice demanding that the agency protect lawyers and respect the rule of law.

The letter, spearheaded by Democracy Forward and the Society for the Rule of Law Institute, urges Attorney General Pam Bondi to ensure the Department of Justice uses its full power to protect the legal profession and equal justice under law for all people.

Noting a litany of Trump attacks on law firms and lawyers, the letter tells Bondi, “It is your responsibility, as the lawyer ultimately entrusted with the representation of the United States in legal matters, to oppose attacks on the legal profession, on judges, and on the rule of law.”

The letter continues, “Attacking legal advocates based on the positions they take in good faith litigation or based on who their clients are or have been is inconsistent with our nation’s values and with the Constitution’s contemplation of the functioning of the judicial branch. Indeed before the founding of the United States, John Adams, an ardent supporter of American independence and someone who opposed King George III, famously represented the British crown’s own soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre — driven by an unwavering commitment to fair process and equal justice.”

Hundreds of law firms, advocacy organizations and individuals have endorsed the letter.

A few weeks after signing the letter, AU joined two dozen civil rights organizations to urge the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block Trump’s order targeting the law firms.

In amicus briefs filed in three cases, AU and allies explained that Trump’s order threatening retaliation against the law firms Perkins Coie LLP, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, and Jenner & Block LLP violates attorneys’ First Amendment rights of freedom to petition the government and freedom of association.

“The Order sets a dangerous precedent that, if permitted to stand, will stifle the President’s critics through unconstitutional threats of retribution and erode the rule of law,” the briefs note.