Former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin said President Donald Trump is waging an unconstitutional campaign of revenge against law firms.
In recent weeks, the president has signed several executive orders targeting firms that have either employed lawyers who have investigated him as government employees or have represented his political opponents. Some firms, such as Skadden Arps and Paul, Weiss have caved. Others have responded by suing the administration. Each of Trump’s orders on this front follows a similar script in which he announces the cancelation of any contracts the firms have with the federal government, as well as restricting firms’ access to government facilities. That lack of access can greatly hinder firms’ abilities to review sensitive government documents.
“Jeff, you and I have talked about this a lot,” Anderson Cooper said to Toobin on Friday’s AC 360 on CNN. “I mean, this is unprecedented. People don’t care about fancy law firms. And I understand that. But this is unprecedented action that gets at something everybody should be concerned about because your ability to hire an attorney if the government comes after you or you have been fired unjustly by the government, if you can’t hire good attorneys…”
Toobin responded by accusing Trump of violating the Constitution in several ways:
And the way the president is going about this violates several different provisions of the Constitution. It’s a violation of the First Amendment rights of the lawyers. It’s a violation of their client’s rights. It’s a violation of due process to just do this without any sort of investigation. That’s what the judge held in the Perkins Coie case a couple of weeks ago.
Apparently, today, that’s what the judge held in the Jenner & Block case. So, I mean, the judges are stepping up. But the costs to these law firms – simply by the filing of these actions even though they’re obviously unconstitutional – are very serious, and they are all paying a price.
Watch above via CNN.
The post Jeffrey Toobin Says Trump’s Vendetta Against Law Firms ‘Violates Several Different Provisions of the Constitution’ first appeared on Mediaite.
