'Pouring gasoline on this fire': Legal expert says Trump DOJ is 'extremely dangerous'
A group of Democratic attorneys general from 20 different states recently authored an open letter to the legal community regarding President Donald Trump's executive orders targeting specific law firms. Now, one of those attorneys general is directly accusing the administration of undermining the Constitution in its ongoing attacks on the judiciary.
During a Wednesday interview on CNN, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (D) took the administration to task over its continued defiance of court orders — particularly the ones handed down from judges that halted orders targeting certain law firms from taking effect.
Tong specifically condemned U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has said that federal agencies can still choose to not contract with law firms that sued the administration over its executive orders and won temporary restraining orders from judges pausing Trump's efforts to claw back security clearances and block their attorneys from federal buildings. Bondi even called on the Supreme Court to intervene and prevent lower court judges from constraining the administration.
"That's extraordinarily dangerous for the attorney general of the United States and a former state attorney general to say ... that the federal government doesn't have to follow court orders," Tong said. "She is pouring fuel, gasoline on this fire that's raging, this Constitutional crisis that's raging right now. We're not on the precipice of a Constitutional crisis. We're in one. And so she's saying, like the vice president has said, like the president has said, we don't have to listen to the courts. And that is dead wrong."
Trump's executive orders have targeted law firms for retribution that have either hired his political enemies, or represented them in court. Many of those firms have cut deals with Trump to contribute nearly $1 billion in pro bono work aimed at advancing the administration's goals. However, other major firms have successfully fought back with litigation, including firms like Janner & Block, WilmerHale, and Perkins Coie.
Tong cautioned other law firms and attorneys against "capitulating" to the administration in the future, arguing that it wouldn't just be harmful to the rule of law and the Constitution, but that it would ultimately jeopardize those law firms' ability to compete with other firms that chose to fight back.
"If i'm at a top law school in this country, and I'm looking at one of these firms that capitulated, why would I go there when I can go to any number of firms that haven't?" Tong said. "So if the defense is: 'He was going to destroy my firm,' well, you probably destroyed it anyway ... This is about checks and balances and being a check on this president. They know that. And they know to the extent they've capitulated that they're weakening it."
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