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'Chilling and Unprecedented': Trump Memo Threatens Law Firms That Cross His Administration
"Good lawyers, regardless of ideology or party, will remain undeterred in the honorable pursuit of our profession," wrote the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Mar 23, 2025
Legal advocacy groups have issued a sharp rebuke to a directive from U.S. President Donald Trump that was unveiled on Friday and which aims to hold "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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'Constitutional Crisis' Feared as Trump DOJ Seeks Ouster of Judge in Deportation Case
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, called the Trump administration's open defiance of federal court orders "a real slippery slope to a different kind of country."
Mar 18, 2025
An attorney representing immigrants facing possible deportation under President Donald Trump's lawless use of the Alien Enemies Act warned Monday that the United States is on the verge of a constitutional crisis, with the administration openly defying and seeking to oust a federal judge who sought to bar the removal of Venezuelans accused without due process of being gang members.
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said during a court hearing Monday that "there has been a lot of talk the last couple of weeks about a constitutional crisis."
"I think we're getting very close to that," Gelernt said as the Trump Justice Department formally requested the removal of U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, from the case involving the administration's invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which plainly states it can only be used in the context of a declared war.
Speaking to reporters following Monday's hearing, Gelernt noted that the 1798 law had only previously been used three times in U.S. history—"all during declared wars."
"The president is simply thumbing his nose at Congress," said Gelernt. "The administration has not only invoked the act in an unprecedented and lawless way, but they have refused to give individuals the opportunity to show that they're not actually part of the [Tren de Aragua] gang."
"We don't know all of the individuals who have been removed so far because the government did it in secret," Gelernt added.
Deputy Director of @ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, Lee Gelernt says he thinks the U.S. is slipping closer and closer to a constitutional crisis saying the president is thumbing his nose at Congress when it comes to the removal of 261 Tren de Aragua #TdA and MS-13 members, “We… pic.twitter.com/39mjxCKidm
— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) March 17, 2025
At Monday's hearing, Boasberg gave the Trump administration until Tuesday afternoon to produce information on its decisionmaking in the wake of the judge's Saturday order barring the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador.
The administration claimed in a Monday filing that the court "lacks jurisdiction" over the president's authority under the Alien Enemies Act.
In his weekend order, Boasberg directed the administration to turn deportation planes around and halt planned flights, instructions that the administration defied. A New York Timesexamination of publicly available flight data showed that "none of the planes in question landed in El Salvador before the judge's order, and that one of them did not even leave American soil until after the judge's written order was posted online."
Politicoreported that "at moments during the 45-minute hearing" on Monday, "the normally unflappable judge raised his voice, rejecting the Justice Department's contention that the government had an exceptionally urgent need to move the planes."
In public appearances and social media posts, Trump administration officials and allies of the president are embracing a fight with the judiciary and flaunting the White House's defiance of Boasberg's order—intensifying concerns of a constitutional emergency.
"We're not stopping," Tom Homan, Trump's immigration czar, said in a Fox News appearance on Monday. "I don't care what the judges think."
Responding to Homan's remarks, Gelernt toldABC News, "I almost don't know what to say to that."
"That is a really, really dangerous comment," he continued. "If the administration is going to openly defy the courts, then we are closing in on what people would call a constitutional crisis. Our country is based on the rule of law, the federal courts have always been able to say what the law is, and so this is a real separation of powers question."
Open defiance of the federal judiciary, Gelernt added, "is a real slippery slope to a different kind of country."
Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary, wrote in a blog post on Monday that "many people wonder if we're in a 'constitutional crisis'" and noted that "definitions of that phrase vary considerably, as do opinions about whether we're in one now."
"My worry is that Trump is surrounded by extremist anti-democracy nihilists, including his vice president, who are encouraging him to defy the Supreme Court," Reich wrote. "If and when he does, we'll be in a constitutional crisis that should cause every American to take to the streets."
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Calls Grow for Federal Probe Into Possible 'Criminal' Musk Corruption at Aviation Agency
"The public has a right to know that their tax dollars are being spent in the public's best interest and not to benefit a government employee's financial interests," according to a recent ethics complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center.
Mar 17, 2025
The drum beat for a federal probe into whether billionaire and GOP donor Elon Musk violated conflict of interest law through his dealings with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is growing louder following reporting that technology from Musk's Starlink, the satellite network developed by its company SpaceX, will be involved in upgrading the FAA air traffic control system.
On Monday, a group of Democratic senators sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Acting Inspector General at the Transportation Department, Mitch Behm, demanding an investigation into whether Musk's activities at the FAA have violated the criminal conflict of interest statute. The letter was first reported by The Guardian on Monday.
"We are concerned that Musk... may be using his government role to benefit his own private company," the senators wrote.
The letter, sent by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) cites coverage from The Washington Post, which in late February reported that the FAA was considering canceling a $2.4 billion Verizon contract to upgrade the FAA's communication system "that serves as the backbone of the nation's air traffic control system" and award the work to Starlink, citing unnamed sources.
The letter follows an ethics complaint, filed last week by the nonpartisan legal group Campaign Legal Center (CLC) to Behm, also asking for an investigation into whether the FAA's business transactions with Starlink "are improper due to violations of the criminal conflict of interest law."
Both the letter from the Democratic senators and the CLC complaint cite a section of federal statute that prohibits government employees—including special government employees, which is Musk's designation—from "participat[ing] personally and substantially" in any "particular matter[s]" in which the employee, their spouse, their companies, or other business partners have any "financial interest."
"Public reports establish that the FAA began using Starlink services and considering contracts with the company in response to Musk's requests," according to the letter from CLC. "The public has a right to know that their tax dollars are being spent in the public's best interest and not to benefit a government employee's financial interests."
In early February, Musk—who has been deputized by U.S. President Trump to pursue cuts to government spending and personnel—said that his so-called Department of Government Efficiency(DOGE) will "aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system."
According to Bloomberg, a SpaceX engineer arrived at the FAA headquarters in late February to "deliver what he described as a directive from his boss Elon Musk: The agency will immediately start work on a program to deploy thousands of the company's Starlink satellite terminals to support the national airspace system."
"There is no effort or intent for Starlink to 'take over' any existing contract," SpaceX wrote on X in early March. The company said it is working in coordination with another prime contractor for the FAA's telecommunications infrastructure "to test the use of Starlink as one piece of the infrastructure upgrades so badly needed along with fiber, wireless, and other technologies."
Per Bloomberg, the FAA is already testing or actively using multiple Starlink terminals.
The CLC letter argues that reporting provides evidence that "the FAA's business relationship with Starlink is tainted by Musk's influence. Musk is a government official with broad authority who acts with direct support from the president. With this authority and support, he has openly criticized the FAA's contractors while directing the agency to test and use his company's services."
This "establish[es] a possible criminal conflict of interest violation, and an [Office of Inspector General] investigation is needed to determine whether the facts constitute a legal violation," per the CLC letter.
The requests to probe Musk's business connections to the FAA come as the U.S. has dealt with a series of plane crashes and accidents, which in some cases have been deadly, and has invited scrutiny of the country's air traffic control system.
John P. Pelissero, the director of a government ethics program at Santa Clara University, told the Post that it appears that "because of Musk's current position in DOGE and his closeness to Trump he and his company are getting an advantage and getting a contract," speaking of the potential Verizon contract cancellation.
"Who's looking out for the public interest here when you get the person who's cutting budgets and personnel from the FAA, suddenly trying to benefit from still another government contract?" Pelissero said, according to the Post.
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