“The first thing we do, let’s kill all lawyers.” As William Shakespeare wrote, this is the first step in the book of authoritarian play.
Shakespeare’s vision is correct today as it was always. Recently, in an attempt to unify power, the White House has announced multiple executive orders targeting specific lawyers and specific values, including on the basis of customers who choose to represent them and the reasons they seek to support.
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These executive orders are not just press data. It interferes directly with the ability of these companies to practice the law on behalf of their customers. Among other measures, they claim to refuse to enter the lawyer of these companies to federal buildings, making it impossible for lawyers to discuss the case in a federal court. Worse than that, it requires revealing the relationship of the secret lawyer and the threat to cut off the federal contracts for customers. Combined, these restrictions and others are designed to remove these law firms by making customers fear to keep them.
On an equal footing, the last executive threatens disciplinary procedures, which can include not getting rid of lawyers from any company called the so-called “trivial” arguments against the government-with “trivial”, of course, is defined by the executive branch. The message here is clear: If you go against the White House, there will be a target on your back. You may lose your ability to practice the law.
This last shift of events is not just a threat to lawyers. It is a threat to the rule of law in America. in CongressI work as the best democratic for the Chinese Communist Party’s selection committee (CCP). One of the greatest strengths in America in our competitors with CCP is that we rule it with the rules, while China is governed by whims Xi Jinping. In America, if the government tries to close your business, you can prosecute him to stop it. In fact, this is what is happening now – with three law firms targeted by these executive orders that go to the court and win temporary restrictions that prevent the White House from closing them mainly. But in China, when Xi Jinping decides your time, there is no asylum. CCP is the judge, jury, and controversy.
While the victories of the last court hall highlight what makes America great, the executive orders themselves come out directly from the play book in CCP. In China, CCP is arrested by lawyers who represent clients who oppose government. In 2023, lawyers were sentenced to a decade for a decade due to the “sabotage of the state” – known as the crime of confronting human rights activists as agents. In 2015, nearly 300 people were seized by the Chinese police in a 709 campaign designed to reduce any lawyers ready to take over the government. Of course, lawyers routinely remove to take over sensitive clients, such as Hong Kong demonstrators. As a result of such actions, most lawyers in China refuse to represent customers who do not deserve CCP.
Modern executive orders are designed to achieve a similar result in America. Although the United States government does not threaten lawyers with arrest, it is threatened to remove law firms from work if they oppose the primary priorities of the White House. When the company decides to face a free customer who has been targeted incorrectly by the government, they now need to ask only whether the case deserves to work for free, but whether the seizure of the case deserves to put a goal on the company’s paid customers. The means are less extreme than we see in China, but the final result cannot be discriminated with annoying – a society in which lawyers are afraid to confront the government, and customers who cannot get the best legal representation cannot.
We cannot accept this result. All Americans may not agree on the largest legal battles of our time, but we must all agree that we need a fair system as both sides of these battles can be represented enthusiastically. Our founders did not ask for less. The right to law is not only included in the constitution, but in our history.
As Paul Clement, who held the position of public lawyer under the president George WW BushHe recently argued on behalf of Wellmer Hill, “John Adams embodied these principles by defending eight British soldiers in the Boston massacre trial.” In fact, John Adams described his representation of these British soldiers as “one of the best pieces I presented to my country.” In contrast, when the Chairman of the Board of Directors took control of China in 1949, one of his first movements was to evacuate the legal system.
While we compete against CCP in various fields, we cannot lose sight of what we fight for. We are fighting for a world governed by rules, not men. We are fighting for a world in which the government serves people, not the other way around. Today, due to these illegal executive orders, we must fight in court for these values. Some may say victory over hollow CCP rings if we mimic their model at home.
This is not on the right or left. This is about righteousness or error. The rule of law, including lawyers’ ability to represent clients who are not concerned without fear of revenge, is a major part, which makes us different from authoritarian societies in the first place. When it comes to our legal system, we must take our signals from the constitution, not China.
Raja Krishnamoorthi works as a member of the House of Representatives selection committee on strategic competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party and represents the eighth Congress region in Illinois.
The views expressed in this article are a writer.
