This should be common sense, but apparently someone may need a Georgetown Law School professor to to explain it, By Hal M. Brown
Mary B. McCord is the executive director of Georgetown Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. She was a former acting assistant attorney general for national security and a longtime federal prosecutor. She wrote an opinion piece in today’s Washington Post titled “The White House war on Big Law hits some speed bumps: The White House is waging war on lawyers. Some judges are having none of it. (Subscription) It is about Trump’s war on certain law firms. As we know, Trump is out to seek revenge on several large law firms for daring to go against, as he would put using the royal we,Trump. Some have knuckeled under. Some have not.
The portion of the essay that struck me was her simple explanation of how the legal system is supposed to work. It is in the following excerpt. It really can’t be more straightforward. You don’t need a “big brain” to understand it.
The constitutional right to counsel is so fundamental to our system that in criminal cases, if a person can’t afford a lawyer, the court will appoint a lawyer for him. Lawyers provide ethical representation not only to people and causes that have popular approval but also to those that do not.
In this way, the lawyers on opposite sides of a case advocate for their clients both by presenting the facts (through the introduction of evidence) and making legal arguments based on those facts. It is how due process of law — the constitutional entitlement to have rights and responsibilities decided by competent, independent judges — is achieved.
By having both sides of a dispute presented in court, judges are better able to assess the merits and render informed judgments.
The author goes on to note how Trump has benefited from this system and now how he endeavors to prevent others from using the very same system to defend themselves.
She concludes with the following:
Enjoining the similarly egregious sections of the order blacklisting law firm Perkins Coie for its representation of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and for challenging voter identification laws, Senior U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell explained it in starker terms: “Our justice system is based on the fundamental belief that justice works best when all parties have zealous advocates, when all sides have vigorous representation and can present for the Court to hear powerful statements on both sides of the question.”
She goes on to end her essay on this optimistic note:
Law firms that have invoked their constitutional rights to challenge these retaliatory orders are 3 and 0 so far. They are winning not just for themselves and their clients, but for the adversarial system that undergirds the rule of law.
You don’t need to go to law school to understand the fundamental tenets of the law in a democracy.
Trump may have read every word in “The Art of the Deal since it was a fantasy story about him. Like the Bible in the infamous photos it has been used as a prop. Added together the books establish Trump’s brand as being the biggest badest business genius chosen by God to lead the country.
I doubt he has read many books cover to cover as an adult, except possibly the Kash Patel children’s books about King Trump and the dastardly plots against him.
At least when Trump brags about his stellar IQ, mercifully we aren’t subjected to pictures of him looking like a lawyer burning the midnight oil in a law library.
We know or can guess about some of what Trump is doing in the middle of the night. He is no doubt plotting ways to forge ahead on his plans to become the most awsome and feared national leader in the world no matter what pesky obstacles are put in his way. We know for a fact that he is composing revenge rants for Truth Social about his enemies. He is possibly engaging in other forms of self-gratification I don’t want to think about.
What we can know for certain is that he isn’t thinking rationally about sustaining our democracy by doing what’s best for average Americans, nor is he pondering the recommendations from experts who disagree with him.
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