The use of executive branch authority to intimidate attorneys and law firms is unusual, according to David Laufman,
A former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence department who has worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations.
“The Attorney General and White House Counsel would have discreetly stepped in and the plan would have been swiftly shelved if anyone in any previous.
White House in the modern era had ever conceived such an authoritarian plan to silence and punish the legal profession,” he stated via text message. Requests for comment were not immediately.
Answered by representatives of the Department of Homeland Security or the Justice Department. The action was described as despotic by a former senior Justice Department official.
The former official, who wished to remain anonymous due to fears of reprisals, said, “The president does not appreciate how an adversarial legal system works.
