There has been a lot of discussion about the Trump administration’s detention of "green card" holder Mahmoud Khalil, the legally dubious deportation of Brown University professor Dr. Rasha Alawieh, and, as of March 21, the demand by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement that Cornell Un iversity graduate student Momodou Taal, a dual Gambian-U.K. citizen and pro-Palestinian activist, surrender to face deportation proceedings. ICE's move against Taal came shortly after he filed a lawsuit challenging the administration’s deportation actions against pro-Palestine political activists. The administration’s deportation operations are much broader, of course — they include children and persons from multiple countries here on U.S. soil. Trump's attacks are taking place in tandem with assaults on institutions of higher education that experienced Israel-Hamas war-related protests, sit-ins, and even the occasional building takeover. Columbia University has arguably been hardest hit. Trump's rhetorical, reputational and financial attacks on those he politically disfavors are a cancer, one that is metastasizing to other critical professions and institutions. His most recent and consistent target has been those in the legal profession, both inside and outside government. It began with a Trump executive order on Feb. 25, targeting the international law firm Covington and Burling with the termination of security clearances for its lawyers and, where possible, ending any federal contracts with the firm. Covington and Burling's alleged sins involved assisting then-Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith during his investigation of Trump's role in his Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after his first term. Another legal megafirm was next on Trump's target list on March 6. Its transgressions? Representing Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign and FusionGPS, the opposition research firm tied to the now-discredited "Steele dossier" on Trump. Trump also targeted the firm for its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Trump charged that the firm "announced percentage quotas in 2019 for hiring and promotion on the basis of race and other categories prohibited by civil rights laws." Just over a week later, the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison (known as just "Paul Weiss") was attacked via another Trump executive order. Current and former Paul Weiss attorneys had been involved in litigation related to Jan. 6, 2021, and one other former Paul Weiss attorney — Mark Pomerantz — was accused by Trump of assisting Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of manufacturing "a prosecution against me" (Trump's words). Paul Weiss also received the same DEI-related accusations from Trump as Perkins Coie. On March 25, Trump added another major law firm to his hit list, Jenner and Block, who he accused of DEI-related transgressions; of hiring Andrew Weissmann, who assisted then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian election interference in the 2016 presidential campaign; and with alleged Weissmann "lawfare" involving Arthur Anderson. All of these actions are pure Trump "revenge tour" and culture war gruel, designed as much to satisfy his thirst for vengeance against political enemies (real or imagined) as they are meant to titillate his political base. But they were also something more: harbingers of worse to come. On Saturday, March 22, Trump issued a memorandum to Attorney General Pam Bondi titled "Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court." Trump directed Bondi to "seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States or in matters before executive departments and agencies of the United States...." And, of course, it would be Bondi who decides what constitutes frivolous, unreasonable or vexatious litigation in the regime. The American Immigration Council, the San Francisco-based firm of Keker, Van Nest and Peters, and former Justice Department official Vanita Gupta denounced the unprecedented attack on civil society lawyers and legal firms. Trump's attacks on the federal judiciary have also intensified in the wake of his decision to invoke the nearly 230-year-old Alien Enemies Act in an attempt to fast-track the deportation process. That move has sparked a very public confrontation between Trump and D.C. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg. Trump declared Boasberg a "Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator" and called for his impeachment, actions that drew a sharp and detailed rebuke from former Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig. Trump’s actions to date likely presage a much broader assault on the rule of law, best visualized as the political equivalent of an asteroid striking the country — in this case, with the waves of legal, professional and personal destruction he wreaks spreading ever wider across the nation. His attacks on the civil society legal profession are clearly designed to silence or otherwise intimidate its members from contemplating representing other administration critics or legal targets. If Trump is successful with this campaign of political terror and intimidation, it will embolden him to go after other domestic political opponents. If the administration's targets get legal counsel and a federal judge rules against Trump, he will go after the judge involved, just as he has Boasberg in the current deportation case. Trump's intimidation tactics appear to have succeeded already with Paul Weiss. And which lawyers are going to be willing to defend people accused of torching Tesla dealerships when the act has been misleadingly labeled domestic terrorism by the attorney general? It is not simply those opposing the administration who are to be targeted, but those who attack friends of the administration as well. Destroying defendants’ or plaintiffs' ability to get representation is exactly the kind of lawfare the administration is waging. It will make legal, public relations and political resistance far more difficult and costly — financially and otherwise. The administration’s desired effect is an ever-downward spiral of activists deciding not to speak out, much fewer file lawsuits, as well as a slowly vanishing number of attorneys willing to take on court cases against the administration. As fewer defendants or plaintiffs actually get before a federal judge, Trump will be able to focus his ire and threats more intensely on the federal judges who hear anti-administration cases. This is systematic naked political repression, manifested through the tactics of an authoritarian administration bent on achieving and maintaining absolute power. Former CIA analyst and former House senior policy advisor Patrick Eddington is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. ...read more read less