Trump keeps losing in court as lawyers 'hold the line' against tyranny

Under Donald Trump's second term, lawsuits are proving to be "one of the only ways to hold the line" against his tyrannical impulses, according to a new analysis from The Bulwark, with the administration continuing to fail in court and seeing its war against law firms crumble.

Per The Bulwark Tuesday morning, "The state of America today is litigious," as hundreds of lawsuits continue to pile up against Trump's political agenda. Sources differ on how many there have been so far, but according to figures from JustSecurity and the New York Times, there have been at least 650 since Trump returned to the White House. While these legal fights are wasting precious time and eating up taxpayer money for the government's defense, they are nonetheless proving "essential."

"These lawsuits and legal complaints are a sinkhole of time and money that we’ll never get back," reporter Jill Lawrence wrote for The Bulwark. "But they are essential, as are the countless lawyers, watchdog groups and others flooding the courts to defend — even save — American rights, freedoms, laws, values, science,and modernity itself."

Of the 670 cases tracked by JustSecurity, 223 have ended up going for the plaintiffs, while 111 have gone for the federal government. The remaining cases are either still pending, have been closed or ended up tied between plaintiffs and defendants in some way. In many cases, the legal pushback against Trump's policy pushes happens "almost instantly."

"Trump’s constant and intentional overreach beyond legal and constitutional bounds guarantees that lawsuits come for almost everything he does or tries to proclaim," Lawrence wrote. "Sometimes almost instantly."

One of the earliest moves by Trump during his second term was also tied to the legal realm, as he sought to punish over a dozen law firms via executive order, for "representing or employing people he considered to be his political enemies." Nine of those law firms opted to capitulate to the administration, striking deals that included offers to do millions of dollars' worth of free legal work for Trump. Four of the firms, however, stood their ground and fought back, and recently saw the administration step down from the battle after a court struck down the original executive order.

According to a piece from the New York Times Editorial Board, those four firms "won vindication" against Trump, while the other nine "failed a high-stakes character test."

"The victories of the four firms — Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale — are a triumph for justice and democracy," the board wrote. "The executive orders that Mr. Trump signed early in his second term were based on the lie that the firms had done something wrong. In fact, their lawyers were merely doing their jobs. They happened to represent Democrats and liberal groups or participated in prior investigations of him. And his would-be punishments of the firms had the potential to damage them badly."

The board continued: "The larger goal of the executive orders was chilling. The president attacked a bedrock principle of the law, which is that everybody deserves legal representation. He sought to frighten lawyers from representing people who had the temerity to criticize him. By extension, he sought to frighten any Americans who might criticize him. Fighting the executive orders took courage, and the four firms deserve praise and gratitude for standing up to the president."