[EL] Spelliscy on Trump's lawyers

[Jim Gardner]

Thanks to Ciara for the informative update on discipline meted out to some of Trump's lawyers.  I have been thinking about why senior, experienced lawyers would completely abandon their professional training and principles in the course of representing Trump, and here's how I would account for it.

>From the perspective of our inherited liberal democracy, the behavior is inexplicable.  That's because lawyers play an important role in a liberal democracy - helping to enforce the rule of law - and their professional training emphasizes that function.  But in the kind of regime that Donald Trump tried hard to create, and which I assume is ardently desired by anyone who would agree to represent him - an authoritarian regime - there is no meaningful rule of law.  Law in Trump's world is not a guide for your own behavior - it's what you inflict on your enemies.  In such a regime, it seems to me, the only thing a lawyer representing the supreme leader needs to do to get a favorable result is to reveal the identity of his client.  That's it.  I represent Donald Trump, therefore you will rule for me.  Upon encountering such a claim, Trump's lawyers assumed, judges will know what to do, and will find a way to do it.  A legal argument of actual integrity is entirely beside the point, and in fact functions only as a kind of window-dressing designed to maintain the appearance of the continued rule of law (just as elections serve as window dressing in what Levitsky and Way call "competitive authoritarian" regimes).

Trump's lawyers, it seems to me, made the tactical error of getting a bit ahead of events.  They acted as though the judiciary was already fully behind Trump's authoritarianism, or at least that those judges who weren't would see the writing on the wall and simply fall into line - as have judges in Hungary, Bolivia, Ecuador, and many other places suffering from similar democratic backsliding.  They found out, to their dismay, that the US isn't there quite yet.  Nevertheless, I think we have gotten a pretty clear glimpse of what the practice of public law will look like if Trump or one of his acolytes wins in 2024.  Indeed, we can already see this in the recent decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, probably the most partisan state supreme court in the country, to renounce any authority to evaluate the fairness of redistricting . . . so long, I suppose, as Republicans control the process.

Jim

___________________________
James A. Gardner
Bridget and Thomas Black SUNY Distinguished Professor of Law
Research Professor of Political Science
University at Buffalo School of Law
The State University of New York
Room 514, O'Brian Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
voice: 716-645-3607
fax: 716-645-2064
e-mail: jgard at buffalo.edu<mailto:jgard at buffalo.edu>
www.law.buffalo.edu<http://www.law.buffalo.edu/>
Papers at http://ssrn.com/author=40126



"Lawyers Risk Their Law Licenses Helping Smarmy Politicians"<https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fp.feedblitz.com%2Fr3.asp%3Fl%3D182457990%26f%3D1116553%26c%3D8063152%26u%3D102231511&data=04%7C01%7Cjgard%40buffalo.edu%7Cb1b55602e0fd4420cfc308d9b80cf03f%7C96464a8af8ed40b199e25f6b50a20250%7C0%7C0%7C637743188101103818%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=Fzihbkp5pIxaeO%2Fp692GQ9BolQhPRGj4ZkwduH0%2BtLY%3D&reserved=0>
By Tabatha Abu El-Haj, December 05, 2021
Professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy writes, in the Washington Monthly<https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fp.feedblitz.com%2Ft3.asp%3F%2F1116553%2F102231511%2F8063152_%2F~washingtonmonthly.com%2F2021%2F12%2F04%2Flawyers-risk-their-law-licenses-helping-smarmy-politicians%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cjgard%40buffalo.edu%7Cb1b55602e0fd4420cfc308d9b80cf03f%7C96464a8af8ed40b199e25f6b50a20250%7C0%7C0%7C637743188101113812%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=gr9BB49oIv1lcn6x3Dp7QulC8YXPlLyuzouAJTW6MSI%3D&reserved=0>, about the hard lessons currently being learned by the lawyers who peddled the Big Lie in court. More than just an update on the sanctions that have already been dispensed, Torres-Spelliscy... Continue reading <https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fp.feedblitz.com%2Ft3.asp%3F%2F1116553%2F102231511%2F8063152_%2F~electionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D126102&data=04%7C01%7Cjgard%40buffalo.edu%7Cb1b55602e0fd4420cfc308d9b80cf03f%7C96464a8af8ed40b199e25f6b50a20250%7C0%7C0%7C637743188101113812%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=h4cqEmDntBfrVVubYXyKYDHPj5CWW%2BT2w8gDkfXLUgA%3D&reserved=0>
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