Republican Senate Confirms Trump As Attorney General

I am rarely shaken. This week I am shaken. The decision by a majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee to approve the confirmation of Todd Blanche as Attorney General and his middle-of-the-night confirmation by the full Republican-controlled Senate is the surest and most devastating signal that the rule of law has collapsed in this country. It also announces the beginning of an accelerated and frightening program of smothering dissent.

Because by this vote, the United States Senate will have unleashed the full weight of the federal legal apparatus on Americans who have committed no crimes and violated no laws, but who oppose the authoritarian agenda of this President. The Senate is fully aware of what a Blanche DOJ is prepared to do - the DOJ is doing those things right now under Blanche’s supervision and encouragement. They include:

• trumped-up felony charges against ordinary Americans simply for the purpose of saving face for an unhinged, mendacious and unstable President;

• refusal to investigate violations of federal law by ICE agents, despite evidence of ICE arbitrary arrests, racial profiling, use of excessive force, and killing;

• targeted prosecution of protesters, and elected officials conducting oversight;

• targeted investigations, searches, and investigations of journalists and their sources to silence truthful reporting that shows Trump in a negative light;

• the subversion of our nation’s civil rights laws with the stated priority of both the Civil Rights Division and the EEOC to focus on discrimination claims brought by white men and Christians claiming religious discrimination, to the exclusion of the population (Black people) for which the 14th Amendment and our core civil rights laws were created;

• dismantling of the process and procedures normally used for the issuance of pardons and commutations;

• the effort to wield the power of the Department to prioritize protection of the President and advancement of his personal wealth;

• refusal to enforce the nation’s anti trust laws where consolidation benefits the President;

• willingness to abuse the legal system and the federal courts with the filing of collusive litigation (like the IRS suit); DOJ attorneys making misleading or false statements or representations to judges; filing frivolous lawsuits; and perhaps engaging in misconduct before grand juries;

• refusal to submit to oversight by Congress and possibly perjury in sworn testimony before Congress.

Every activist, elected official, election administrator, journalist, protester — every single American will now speak, act, and exercise their constitutional rights with the knowledge that should Trump desire it, they may be subject to investigation and prosecution - however trumped up the accusations. What matters is what Trump wants. He is the de facto Attorney General.

Blanche denied none of this during his confirmation hearings or in media interviews. Encouraged by the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision this term in the Trump v. Slaughter case and by Chief Justice Roberts stunning dicta in the Trump immunity case (where Roberts insisted that Trump has total power over the Department of Justice), Blanche affirmed what he believes is the right of the President to fully control every apparatus of the federal government, including federal prosecutions.

This is the most significant marker on our full descent into authoritarianism because it will allow this President to use the Department of Justice to neutralize any form of dissent. Even frivolous prosecutions by the U.S. Department of Justice are a powerful deterrent to dissent. That process has already begun. We have seen the arrest and charging of protestors with federal conspiracy charges. The investigation of journalists and their sources. The targeting of elected officials who oppose Trump’s policies now or in the past. Now it has the sanction of a majority of the Senate.

This will be the example of how law is practiced by the highest lawyers’ office in the nation. The Attorney General and those under him will normalize the unconscionable. They will blow through ethical norms. Bedrock case law that governs the conduct of prosecutors, like the obligation to share potentially exculpatory evidence with defense counsel will be routinely violated. Activists will be harassed with investigations and prosecutions. Ordinary people - like 62 year-old former Olympian riding his bike in a public park - may find themselves on the receiving end of a full-blown prosecution simply to appease the President’s ego.

So far judges and juries are holding steady in most of the actions brought in Washington, D.C. and New York. But what about when more prosecutions are brought in Florida and Alabama and Missouri?

And what of the stain on our profession? A lawyer for whom a federal judge is prepared to probe whether he committed “fraud on the court” has risen to the position of Attorney General of the United States. A generation of young lawyers will mature in the context of this reality.

My fellow lawyers must decide whether we will guard the ramparts of this profession to which we have committed so much of our lives. I am proud of the amazing coterie of lawyers who fight every day to hold on to some semblance of the rule of law. They fight against voter suppression, abuses of administrative law and conflicts of interest by this Administration. They represent Americans who are victims of targeted and malicious prosecutions. And they fight for the due process rights of migrants and others who have been subject to this Administration’s excesses. They teach, they write, they strategize, they advise and they litigate. The lawyers who do this work are too few. And they will be targeted as well. Who will represent them?

So where are the rest of the lawyers? What obligations does being “an officer of the court” require of you? What pro bono work are you doing to protect those who will be most vulnerable to these attacks? Or are you still more worried about being targeted yourselves? What is your obligation to protect the rule of law in this perilous moment?

I salute the 35 former federal judges (appointed by both Democratic and Republican Presidents) who filed the extraordinary brief making the brilliant and well-supported argument that the Attorney General may have committed a “fraud on the court.” That charge remains to be determined by the court. But the action by the judges demonstrates how lawyers who believe in the rule of law and the integrity of our legal system can play a role in protecting it.

Listen. This is not just about lawyers. We have a very limited window to fight this. Whatever non-violent tools of resistance we have left must be deployed - boycotts, protests, litigation, general strikes, demonstrations. We must shame those who are prepared to sit on the sidelines or worse abet this madness. Corporations (who have shockingly even allowed Trump to nationalize percentages of their companies - the great fear they all claimed they had of the left) must be called out. What media we have left must be pushed to take up their proper role of informing the citizenry about the stakes of this moment. Faith institutions have begun to rouse themselves, but their actions must intensify. Bishop William Barber is providing a compelling example with his 100 days, 1000 marches to the polls countdown to the election.

Most importantly, ordinary Americans must begin to understand the consequences of this latest outrage for their own lives. That means we need more effective and intensive organizing. To do that work requires resources. Donor organizations will need to step up and support organizing groups that have the capacity to do their work door-to-door, in churches, in community meetings, on street corners.

But nothing we do will matter unless we are able to mobilize massive turnout in the. midterm elections. If this election does not give Democrats the power to hit the emergency brake in January, this country will be in freefall. And if the Democrats get that power and hesitate to use it, this country will be lost.

This morning’s Senate vote to install Todd Blanche as Attorney General is as important a milestone in our descent into authoritarian rule as any. It is an event of monumental significance that demands our attention and action.