Members of the legal community say that President Donald Trump’s “multi-pronged assault” on the Department of Justice, the nation’s major law firms, and the judiciary undermines central tenets of the U.S. justice system.
And they don’t stop there.
They say the damage will be generational and raises concerns about the judiciary’s independence.
At the root of what’s going on is retribution.
Trump’s first Executive Order that involved a law firm targeted Perkins Coie, which represented Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The legal community was in shock.
Then, the executive orders just kept coming, each complaining of a past hiring decision or client of the targeted firm. In some of the orders, Trump also accused the firms of being “partisan” in the clients they represented.
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The firms felt bullied. And to reduce the legal risk of Trump’s policies, they cut million-dollar deals with the president to provide free legal work for projects that both the firm and Trump support.
Firms started coming to the administration preemptively to avoid major legal challenges, costly legal battles or losing PR fights.
Chris Christie, a former federal prosecutor, said in an interview with ABC: “Any suit that’s filed against Trump’s administration, Donald Trump will, by definition, believe is frivolous and vexatious. If (firms) continue to …. cave and be intimidated, well then, we’re going to have a much different legal system in this country.”
.@GovChristie tells @JonKarl that he believes Pres. Trump when the president says will not defy a judicial order.
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 23, 2025
“He has used the courts to his advantage in every aspect of his life … Courts have been his friend, not his foe.” https://t.co/csDEQqIvCL pic.twitter.com/j9Sptxalt5
The worry is that the potential for damage will be extensive and extend well beyond law firms.
Legal analysts say the law firms targeted by the administration are having their First Amendment and Constitutional rights trampled on.
The administration’s defense is that someone who investigated Trump had been employed by or represented by each of the firms in question.
Or, it argues that the firms allegedly discriminated on the basis of race in employment decisions. That’s an apparent reference to affirmative action.
The orders are producing an outcry within the legal profession. You have the Trump administration attacking the independence of the judiciary and threatening to impeach judges and discredit the judiciary.
They wonder who has the power to stand up to the administration and say, “You are in the wrong!”
The work of the Department of Justice is guided by internal norms, not laws passed by Congress. These norms were put in place after Watergate to protect the DOJ’s independence from politics and ensure its decisions to investigate and prosecute are based only on the facts and the law.
Oversight by Congress and independent Inspectors General can expose when the department strays from its norms. That implementation ultimately comes down to the principles of individual employees.
With what’s going on, fired employees are asking whether facts and law, not politics, can play a critical role in decision-making?
They also want to know what message the mass firing of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team sends for investigating or prosecuting any potential misconduct involving the president.
Should the ongoing purge of career officials worry anyone who cares about keeping politics out of the DOJ?
Nationally renowned prosecutor and defense attorney and legal analyst Jeremy Rosenthal joins me for this week’s episode of Politics & Power.
Watch at 7 p.m. or 9 p.m. on News4JAX+ or catch it on demand any time on News4JAX+, News4JAX.com or our YouTube channel.