These Days Before the Vote: “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.”
Whitewater, Wis. — Today’s entry this Sunday morning continues These Days Before the Vote, a series addressing each day before the November election a principle or position on which the liberal democratic tradition rests.
Consider the Declaration’s charge against the British monarch that “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.” In the earliest days of the Trump administration, contrary to all precedent in this republic, the administration sought, by executive order, to target a law firm and its clients. The March 6, 2025, executive order against Perkins Coie directed restrictions involving security clearances, federal contracts, access to government buildings, and access to officials. See Donald J. Trump, Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP §§ 2–5, White House (Mar. 6, 2025).
In his order, Trump moved from his ceaseless denigration of the judiciary to a more insidious tactic: to prevent lawyers and firms from representing clients diligently and zealously in matters not to his personal liking.
Although Perkins Coie won a permanent injunction against the administration, Trump’s order caused immediate harm to that firm before a court ruling. See Perkins Coie LLP v. U.S. Department of Justice, 783 F. Supp. 3d 105 (D.D.C. 2025).
And yet, and yet, the extraordinary pressure of federal executive power meant that “Nine [other] firms in all have pledged a total of $940 million in pro bono legal work to the Trump administration.” These pro bono cases were to be undertaken at the direction and approval of the Trump administration. See David Thomas, Democratic lawmakers press more law firms about their deals with Trump, Reuters, April 22, 2025.
By his command alone, Trump won himself nearly a billion dollars in free legal representation. While these firms made their members and associates Trump’s indentured servants, their unworthy service was neither literally nor figuratively true pro bono work — there is no work for good to be done at the whim of a bigoted, senescent autocrat.
Credit where credit is due, however, as though one would credit a pig for finding truffles — Trump understood that he could undermine the judiciary as effectively by intimidating and corrupting lawyers as by intimidating and corrupting judges directly.
