American Bar Association Sues Trump Over ‘Unprecedented’ Threats to Legal Profession

The legal complaint is the largest counterstrike to date against Trump’s politically driven feud with many of the nation’s largest law firms.

President Donald Trump signs an executive order.
Evan Vucci/AP

The American legal profession has declared war on the Trump administration.

The American Bar Association, the typically nonpartisan and reserved professional voice of the legal trade, is suing nearly every top federal government official to fight what it calls President Donald Trump’s “deliberate policy designed to intimidate and coerce law firms and lawyers” that challenge his policies.

“President Trump now threatens to destroy the same attribute that John Adams and Alexis de Tocqueville recognized as essential to the rule of law in the early days of our Republic: the independence of the American bar,” read the 93-page federal lawsuit filed Monday in Chicago.