{"id":175491,"date":"2026-03-13T10:16:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T18:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=175491"},"modified":"2026-03-13T10:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T18:18:08","slug":"nyt-the-trump-administration-floats-a-new-way-to-humiliate-the-legal-profession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=175491","title":{"rendered":"NYT: The Trump Administration Floats a New Way to Humiliate the Legal Profession"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deborah Pearlstein, the director of the Princeton program in law and public policy, writes in the New York Times about her love of truth<\/a>: <\/p>\n

The state bar disciplinary system is far from perfect. Proceedings can drag on for years. Some bar authorities are reluctant to investigate Trump administration lawyers. Even disciplinary systems with the courage to move forward could have a tough time handling the sheer number of administration lawyers who have apparently lied. Still, coupled with other deterrents \u2014 the courts themselves and lawyers\u2019 concern for their own reputations \u2014 the risk of state bar discipline remains a critical tool for protecting the truth-finding function of the federal courts. No wonder the administration is determined to go after them.
\nThe move against state bars is of a piece with the administration\u2019s broader strategy against universities, the media and law firms \u2014 any set of organizations capable of challenging the president\u2019s power. And few things threaten it more than holding it to the truth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Her article operates on two levels at once. On the surface, it argues a legal point: a proposed Trump administration rule would shield Department of Justice lawyers from state bar discipline, violating the McDade Amendment (28 U.S.C. \u00a7 530B), which requires federal lawyers to follow the same ethics rules as every other licensed attorney. The argument holds legal water, and the underlying facts she cites, the erratic briefing, the judges who have called DOJ lawyers liars, the wave of resignations, are all real. But the piece also works as coalition defense, and reading it as only a legal argument misses half of what it does.
\nPearlstein writes from within the elite legal-institutional coalition. That coalition, federal judges, career DOJ attorneys, state bar associations, elite law schools, and legal academics, draws its authority from a set of shared norms: lawyers tell the truth to courts, courts can sanction misconduct, and no government is above the professional rules that govern the legal order. If those norms weaken, the coalition weakens. So when she frames the proposed rule as an attack on the “truth infrastructure” of the legal system, she uses language that does two things simultaneously. It describes a real institutional threat, and it signals to every lawyer who identifies with that coalition that the threat is existential.
\nThe Trump administration’s incentives here follow a clear logic. Career DOJ lawyers have used professional ethics rules as a form of internal resistance, resigning rather than filing briefs they consider dishonest. Removing external discipline lowers the cost of staying for lawyers willing to work inside the new order. At the same time, de-emphasizing credentials and protecting lawyers from bar sanctions opens the door to loyalists who lack elite pedigree but carry fewer reservations. The administration moves disciplinary power from state bars, which answer to no one in the executive branch, to the Office of Professional Responsibility, which answers to the deputy attorney general. Todd Blanche, the current deputy, recently said the administration is at “war” with the federal courts. That is who would now oversee internal ethics reviews.
\nPearlstein largely ignores the counter-narrative that animates the Trump coalition. From inside that coalition, the legal profession looks less like a neutral referee and more like a politically hostile guild. Career DOJ lawyers delayed or refused to execute policies they personally opposed. State bar authorities, at least some of them, show reluctance to pursue Trump-aligned lawyers for reasons that have nothing to do with the merits. Elite law schools and major law firms skew politically in a direction that makes them, in the coalition’s view, structurally adversarial to Republican governance. None of that makes the proposed rule sound policy, but it explains why the coalition treats the legal profession as an adversary rather than an institution worth protecting.
\nThe framing of “truth versus authoritarianism” that runs through the column is coalition language, and not only in the cynical sense. Pearlstein believes it, and the underlying concern has real institutional weight. Courts depend on honest representations by counsel. If the executive branch can shield its lawyers from any external disciplinary review, judges lose one of the few tools they have to enforce the truth-finding function of legal proceedings. The Office of Professional Responsibility has historically operated like a black hole, and it has no subpoena power outside the department. State bar discipline, imperfect as it is, remains the only meaningful external check on DOJ conduct.
\nWhat the article finally reveals is less a debate about one rule and more a contest over who controls the machinery of American law. Three competing models of legal authority are in tension. Professional autonomy holds that lawyers regulate themselves through courts and guilds, independent of elected leadership. Executive populism holds that elected authority overrides professional guilds when they obstruct the will of the governed. Bureaucratic technocracy holds that career experts maintain continuity of legal interpretation regardless of who wins elections. The fight over the McDade Amendment is a proxy for that larger contest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deborah Pearlstein, the director of the Princeton program in law and public policy, writes in the New York Times about her love of truth: The state bar disciplinary system is far from perfect. Proceedings can drag on for years. Some … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=175491"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175494,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175491\/revisions\/175494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=175491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=175491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=175491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}