'Will not back down' from Trump's 'intimidation': Activists react to president's new memo

24 March

Donald Trump gestures at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., December 22, 2024.

Legal advocacy groups have issued a sharp rebuke to U.S. President Donald Trump's directive aimed at holding "accountable" law firms and lawyers that, according to him, "engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States."

"Accountability is especially important when misconduct by lawyers and law firms threatens our national security, homeland security, public safety, or election integrity," Trump wrote in a memorandum to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, which was issued late Friday. Trump directed Bondi to "seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms" who engage in objectionable litigation, and scrutinize litigation against the government stretching back over the past eight years.

The new directive is a widening of Trump's campaign against lawyers and law firms he does not like. Reuters reported Saturday that the Trump administration has been hit with over 100 legal challenges, taking aim at various White House actions.

Multiple legal groups denounced the move, saying they would not be intimidated.

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, wrote on Sunday that for over 30 years her organization "has stood strong against attacks on reproductive freedom. We have litigated scores of cases in federal courts, including against the U.S. government, regardless of the political party in power."

"We will not back down in the face of the president's intimidation campaign—not while his administration refuses to defend women who are denied emergency abortion care; not while it condones violence at abortion clinics; and not while doctors are under threat of criminal prosecution for providing essential care. Not now and not ever," she continued.

Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), echoed this sentiment in a statement released on Saturday.

"This action by the president of the United States is a chilling and unprecedented attack on the foundations of liberty and democracy. Good lawyers, regardless of ideology or party, will remain undeterred in the honorable pursuit of our profession. We will continue to stand up for the people and the rule of law," Wang wrote.

Trump specifically called out lawyers working in the immigration space. "The immigration system... is likewise replete with examples of unscrupulous behavior by attorneys and law firms. For instance, the immigration bar, and powerful Big Law pro bono practices, frequently coach clients to conceal their past or lie about their circumstances when asserting their asylum claims," he wrote.

Kelli Stump, the president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), and the group's executive director Ben Johnson, pushed back on Trump's claims.

"The broad assertion that immigration attorneys are acting improperly in their efforts to represent individuals against an increasingly complex and restrictive immigration system is both unfounded and dangerous," they wrote in a statement on Saturday.

The memo also name drops Marc Elias, a prominent attorney who has worked for multiple major Democratic political campaigns.

Skye Perrymen, the CEO and president of the legal group Democracy Forward—where Elias serves as board chair—said in a statement on Saturday that "the ongoing threats to the legal profession and the rule of law by the president are intended to intimidate and inspire fear, but instead they should inspire action."

"The president's increasing targeting of lawyers, the legal profession, and judges is in response to a number of instances where communities across the nation have had to go to federal court to protect their rights from this administration's overreach and where judges nominated by both Republican and Democratic presidents and confirmed by the U.S. Senate have found that the Trump-Vance administration's actions warrant scrutiny and, in many cases, are unlawful," added Perrymen.

Democracy Forward, the ACLU, and AILA have all brought cases challenging Trump administration actions.

The order comes at the end of a rocky week for the field of law. On Thursday, one of the country's top law firms, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, brokered a deal with the White House in order to spare the firm from an executive order that suspended security clearances for lawyers and staff.

As part of the deal, according to a post from Trump on social media, the firm "will dedicate the equivalent of $40 million in pro bono legal services over the course of President Trump's term to support the administration's initiatives, including: assisting our nation's veterans, fairness in the justice system, the president's Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and other mutually agreed projects."

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