Michelle Behnke says lawyers from around the world have given support as ABA challenges ‘policy of intimidation’
The Trump administration’s crackdown on lawyers it does not like is something people thought “could never happen in the United States”, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA) has said.
In an interview with the Guardian, Michelle Behnke, who was in London for a gathering on the safety and protection of lawyers, said the ABA was used to dispensing advice to associations in other countries but the tables had turned to an extent.
Since taking office, Donald Trump and his government have placed restrictions on some lawyers and law firms, including their ability to freely represent clients, mostly because they have done legal work that the president has opposed or they have been associated with prosecutors who investigated him.
Among the tactics adopted have been terminating lawyers’ security clearances, severing firms’ government contracts, refraining from hiring certain firms’ employees for federal government jobs and limiting lawyers’ access to federal buildings.
In response, the ABA filed a lawsuit in June asking a federal court to declare unconstitutional the Trump administration’s “unlawful policy of intimidation against lawyers and law firms”.
Behnke, who rubbed shoulders with lawyers from countries such as Turkey and Zimbabwe at the event hosted by the Bar Council and the Law Society of England and Wales, said: “People are aware of the executive orders against law firms to suggest that no one in a law firm could enter any federal building – that would mean that you would not be able to practise law. So that’s an assault or a threat against law firms, and as effective as physical threats.
“People maybe a year or two ago might have said that could never happen in the United States. [This shows] no place is immune, no place is perfect.”
Trump’s crackdown on lawyers shows ‘no place is immune’, says US bar chief
