[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on September 26, 2026.]

by Steven J. Harper

President Donald Trump is in trouble and he knows it.

· He promised “no more foreign wars,” but started a war with Iran that he has lost.

· He promised to tame inflation, but tariffs and his war of choice have made it worse.

· He promised to deport only the “worst of the worst” illegal immigrants. But ICE has terrorized American cities as agents sometimes arrested, detained, wounded, or killed U.S. citizens.

· He promised to make the United States the most respected country in the world, but he has destroyed America’s reputation and alienated its allies.

· He calls himself the best president in history, but his approval rating has dropped to the mid-30s – his lowest ever and approaching President Nixon’s final approval rating of 24% shortly before his resignation in 1974.

· He tells his audiences to pretend he’s on the ballot in November, but many Republican congressional candidates are distancing themselves from him.

· Sen. John Curtis (R) from ruby-red Utah is not up for re-election, but he has urged an investigation into the Trump family’s financial dealings and the potential for corruption.

· Trump promised lower interest rates on home mortgages, but 30-year fixed-rate mortgages now exceed 7% – the highest since May 2024.

· He promised gasoline below $2.00 per gallon, but the price has soared to an average of $4.50 per gallon. The price of diesel has increased even more dramatically – to a record shattering $6.50 per gallon.

The list goes on and on. So Trump turned to a familiar foil and a proven strategy: attack the press to divert public attention from his failures.

Same Old Playbook

CNN, MSNOW, and POLITICO won the first round in Trump’s latest attempt to subvert the First Amendment. But Trump’s shiny object consumed the media. His goal now is to extend the controversy.

Act I

While many of his most senior advisers were away at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, September 18, Trump announced on social media that he was banning CNN, MSNOW, and POLITICO from the White House. At first nothing happened, but by Saturday morning the press passes for reporters at those organizations no longer allowed them past White House security.

On Monday morning, September 21, the news organizations sued the Trump administration for violating their First Amendment right to a free press and their Fifth Amendment right to due process of law.

On Tuesday, September 22, the White House sent the organizations what it purported were notices of the revocations, giving them until Friday to respond.

Act II

At a court hearing on Wednesday, September 23, Trump’s Justice Department asserted the laughable argument that the White House letter sent to the news organizations on Tuesday, September 22 – days after Trump revoked the press passes – somehow satisfied the Fifth Amendment requirement of due process prior to any revocation.

The DOJ also told the judge that amorphous “national security” concerns justified revoking the passes. But Trump’s own statements of his reasons for the revocation undercut that argument.

Without reaching the First Amendment issues, the court based its constitutional ruling on Trump’s failure to provide due process. Judge Timothy J. Kelly – a Trump appointee – granted a temporary restraining order requiring Trump to restore the revoked press credentials immediately.

Act III

Judge Kelly issued his opinion around 1:00 am on Thursday, September 24. But as the business day began, the affected reporters’ press passes were still disabled, prompting the news organizations to file an emergency motion before Judge Kelly. The Justice Department responded with a declaration stating that press access had been restored at 9:55 a.m., so the judge cancelled the hearing.

But that evening, reporters for CNN and MSNOW were turned away from the state dinner arrivals at the White House, where Trump was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Act IV

To satisfy Trump, government attorneys are probably working on a new strategy. Here’s one possible scenario:

1. The White House imposes less drastic restrictions on its disfavored press outlets. Slow walking the reinstatement of press passes and preventing CNN and MSNOW reporters from covering arrivals at the state dinner for President Xi Thursday night could be previews of coming attractions.

2. The White House gives the news organizations new notices and an opportunity to be heard before suspending their press passes again. The notices would concoct arguments, probably with a focus on Trump’s favorite phrase for justifying his consolidation of power – “national security.”

3. The White House would then revoke the press passes.

4. The news organizations would file another lawsuit challenging the revocation.

5. Trump would lose again, but he would presse ahead in the hope that eventually the U.S. Supreme Court would bail him out. If Trump loses in the D.C. Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court probably would refuse to take the case – leaving his loss in place.

6. If the Supreme Court accepted the case, I predict it would issue a 7-2 opinion – with Justices Alito and Thomas dissenting – confirming that the First Amendment still means what it says.

7. All of this will take time. And most importantly, it will remain a big news item that diverts at least some attention away from the broader failures of Trump’s presidency.

“The People’s House”

Trump has been eager to tear down the East Wing, reshape the White House grounds, turn the interior into a gilded spectacle, and otherwise impose his dramatic construction ideas at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Yet shortly after revoking the press credentials of CNN, MSNOW, and POLITICO, he told reporters:

“It’s sick. I mean, there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stuff.”

In the next sentence, he revealed himself: “Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into my, into the people’s house.”

Trump thinks the White House belongs exclusively to him. But his lease ends in two years, and no security deposit is sufficient to cover the profound damage he is inflicting on the nation.

Meanwhile, it is vital to beat back Trump’s repeated assaults in the Constitution. But it’s also important to remember that among the most important underlying goals of his most outrageous actions is diverting Americans from the mess that he has made of the country.

[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on September 17, 2026.]

by Steven J. Harper

President Donald Trump is losing badly, and he knows it. At the MAGA rally billed as the Republican midterm convention on September 9-10, he mounted yet another brazen attack on the democratic process that threatens to hold him accountable. He tried to buy votes, imbue personal loyalty to him over allegiance to democracy, and encourage voter fraud.

Most of the media dismissed the episode as just another bizarre Trump moment.

A Dubious Promise

Eight minutes into his second keynote speech on Day Two of the rally, the president promised a $5,000 “Trump dividend” to every U.S. adult citizen if Republicans retained control of Congress in November. That would add more than $1 trillion dollars to the burgeoning federal deficit and fuel persistent inflation.

Some observers dismissed it as a campaign promise. But federal law provides:

“Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and

Whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” (18 U.S.C. Sec. 597 – “Expenditures to Influence Voting”)

Of course, the Trump Justice Department that is prosecuting former FBI Director James Comey for posting a photograph of seashells on a beach will never investigate or prosecute Trump for anything. And Trump’s position will always be that Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion in Trump v. United States effectively gave him a permanent “get-out-of-jail-free” card for anything he does as president.

Even so, Trump’s promise of money in exchange for Republican votes was blatantly anti-democratic; the loyalty oath that he then asked his audience to take was worse.

A Dangerous Pledge

Ten minutes after his $5,000 promise, Trump asked attendees to raise their right hands and swear – not to defend democracy, but to undermine it as an act of personal loyalty to him:

“I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can’t even breathe.”

The audience repeated his words. Ignoring the evidence that voter fraud is virtually non-existent, Trump continued:

“That I will go out with my family, my friends. I’ll do it anyway. I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m gonna try and cheat like hell like they do. They never, there’s never been bigger cheaters. They don’t care. I am gonna go out and I’m gonna get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on November 3rd or we are going to vote before that.

“Ready? To finish the pledge? So we swear [Audience responded: “We swear.”] on November 3^rd, we are going to go out and vote.”

Then Trump added: “And you know what? If you want, you can vote Democrat, but I don’t think there’s one person in this room that’s gonna vote [Democrat]. [Audience responded: “No.”]

“I don’t think so. So I don’t have to preface, I don’t wanna waste the words vote Republican, just go out. If you vote, you’re voting Republican. Okay.”

Then he concluded the pledge: “So help me God.”

[Audience responded: “So help me God”]

“Swear Your Loyalty to Me”

It’s no secret that Trump values personal loyalty to him above all else. Competence has never been a job requirement in his administration. (See, for example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (HHS), Pete Hegseth (Defense), Kristi Noem (HHS), Tulsi Gabbard (DNI), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Labor), and more)

But Trump’s oath is particularly unsettling. A U.S. president asking any audience to swear personal fealty to him should trouble any citizen. When coupled with a pledge to commit voter fraud aimed at preserving that president’s compliant legislative majority for another two years, it’s stunning. And the historical parallels are frightening.

Pundits responded with their usual euphemisms: “Trump acted outside historical norms;” “Don’t take Trump literally;” “Trump is being Trump.”

Then they moved on.

“Outside historical norms”? Trump’s actions are so far beyond the pale that it’s inappropriate to describe them in such sanitized terms. He has already destroyed many of democracy’s guardrails, and he’s not done.

“Don’t take Trump literally”? Maybe pundits don’t, but even with a dismal approval rating in the mid-30s, millions of people will. After all, he concluded his September 10 pledge with a warning:

“You know what happens if you don’t vote? You go to hell. You know that. Okay? You go to hell. And I don’t want that to happen to you, so please go and vote because together we will defeat the communists. We will defeat the communists. We will reject, and that’s what they are. They’re not socialists. They’re not Democrats. They’re communists. We will reject these radical left lunatics. We will demolish the extremists, fanatics, lunatics and criminals who want to destroy our country.”

“Trump is being Trump”? That’s true in the sense that he’s saying the quiet part out loud. But the response should be more than a collective shrug. With the help of a complicit Republican majority in Congress, a cooperative U.S. Supreme Court, and Republican controlled-state governments across the country, Trump has amassed unprecedented presidential power – and abused it in unprecedented ways.

The November election must become the reckoning that Trump does not want.

Steven J. Harper, an attorney, former partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and former adjunct professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, is the author of The Lawyer Bubble — A Profession in Crisis and Crossing Hoffa — A Teamster’s Story. His op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, USA Today, Crain’s, The Hill, and other publications. He has also been a columnist for The American Lawyer. Website: https://thelawyerbubble.com. Substack:  https://stevenjharper.substack.com

[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on July 25, 2026.]

by Steven J. Harper

In an early victory for President Donald Trump’s protection racket, the leaders of nine prestigious Biglaw firms collectively paid almost $1 billion and sacrificed their professional integrity to secure peace with his administration – or so they thought.

They were wrong.

The ABA Defends the Profession

In June 2025, the ABA sued the Trump administration for targeting those firms and five others. The ABA claims that Trump has sought to intimidate attorneys from representing clients and causes that he didn’t like.

After a federal judge denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the ABA’s complaint in April, the ABA subpoenaed the files of Trump adviser Boris Ephsteyn, a key liaison in negotiating settlements between the nine capitulating firms and the White House. The Department of Justice moved to quash the subpoena, arguing that the confidentiality of presidential communications is a constitutional safeguard.

Among the problems with the government’s position are that: 1) Ephsteyn is a personal senior counsel to Trump; 2) he has no official position in the White House or the administration; and 3) Trump has not asserted executive privilege. The dispute may well land in the U.S. Supreme Court, which has become Trump’s preferred forum.

The Justice Department Opens a New Front in Trump’s Continuing War

On July 2, the DOJ took a step that seemed odd: It served subpoenas on the nine capitulating firms, as well as four firms that fought Trump’s executive order and won. (It also subpoenaed a firm that took no public action.) Those subpoenas sought some of the same information that the ABA wanted from Ephsteyn:

“All communications on or after January 20, 2025 that [each firm] sent to Boris Epshteyn, received from Boris Epshteyn, or participated in with Boris Epshteyn.” They also sought all communications relating to the negotiations, implementation, enforcement, and monitoring of the agreements.

Presumably the Justice Department already has access to the law firms’ communications with Ephsteyn. If so, why did it subpoena the firms for some of the same material, including documents that it didn’t want the White House to provide in response to the ABA’s subpoena?

Possible answers:

1) The DOJ wants the 14 subpoenaed firms to pressure the ABA into withdrawing its subpoena seeking Ephsteyn’s files. If so, it has misread the room badly. In April, the ABA filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on behalf of its 400,000 members supporting the four law firms that successfully challenged the constitutionality of Trump’s executive orders. The ABA isn’t going to save the capitulating Biglaw firms from themselves.

2) The Department doesn’t trust Ephsteyn and/or the White House to provide it with all relevant materials that Ephsteyn has.

3) The subpoenas were a predicate for the DOJ’s next move: trying to disqualify the ABA’s outside counsel – Susman Godfrey, one of the four big firms that won court challenges to Trump’s executive orders.

The Justice Department Tries to Avoid the Plain Language of the Applicable Rule

On July 17, the DOJ moved to disqualify Susman Godfrey from representing the ABA. It relies on the governing District of Columbia Rules of Professional Conduct, specifically, Rule 3.7, which states:

“A lawyer shall not act as advocate at a trial in which the lawyer is likely to be a necessary witness….” [Emphasis supplied]

The Justice Department argues that the rule “contains a bright line rule prohibiting a lawyer from serving as both advocate and fact witness in the same matter….”

Not quite.

· First, Rule 3.7 does not apply to all “fact witnesses.” It applies only to necessary witnesses. Susman Godfrey lawyers have become potential witnesses only because the DOJ subpoenaed documents from the firm as a whole.

· Second, the rule applies only to individual lawyers within a law firm and, except in special circumstances inapplicable to the ABA case, not to all members of an entire firm. The DOJ has sought to depose as potential witnesses only the chairpersons of the 14 firms.

· Third, the rule focuses on the interests of the client [here, the ABA], not its opponent [the White House]. As the official commentary to Rule 3.7 explains: “If the only reason for not permitting a lawyer to combine the roles of advocate and witness is possible prejudice to the opposing party [the White House], there is no reason to disqualify other lawyers in the testifying lawyer’s firm from acting as advocates in that trial.”

· Finally, the rule bars only an advocate who is likely to be a necessary witness at trial. The case may never reach the trial stage, and Susman Godfrey is free to represent the ABA until it does. Since 1992, DC Bar Ethics Opinion 228 has made that clear.

Meanwhile, the nine capitulating firms now face a quandary: What does Trump want from them? If they comply with the DOJ’s subpoenas, they will disclose some of the very information that the Justice Department is trying block by objecting to the ABA’s subpoena.

Regardless of the DOJ’s motivations, federal judges do not take kindly to an advocate’s misreading of the governing law or ignoring precedent that cuts against its position.

Here’s the real kicker: The subpoenas to Susman Godfrey and its fellow resisting law firms have already backfired. They are more evidence supporting the ABA’s claims of presidential intimidation and harassment.

As for the nine firms that settled – and the many other institutions that have capitulated to Trump – the entire episode demonstrates that appeasing a bully will never produce finality.

[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on June 17, 2026.]

by Steven J. Harper

On Sunday night, President Donald Trump brought the country to a new low. The question is whether the nation has finally bottomed out – and realizes it.

On the White House lawn, Trump hosted Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts cage matches. Fighters attacked each other with their fists, feet, knees, and elbows. Blood spewed everywhere; that was the point.

It wasn’t boxing; the combatants wore gloves with much less padding. It wasn’t professional wrestling; the injuries inflicted were real. It was billed as a sporting event, but as commentators observed, it was really 21^st century cockfighting where the birds are human beings.

Follow the Money

The UFC said that private funding totaling $60 million paid for the event. But it’s not clear that any private money covered the monumental work of the hundreds of staff from seven federal government agencies, or the estimated $10 to $12 million in supplemental security that the District of Columbia incurred (to be reimbursed from federally appropriated funds for federal events).

Beyond the abuse of taxpayers’ dollars, Trump’s profiteering was pervasive.

· “Ultimate Fighting Championship” is a promotional company owned and operated by TKO Group Holdings. Trump owns stock in TKO Group Holdings.

· A day before the fights, Trump’s super PAC MAGA,Inc. held a one-million dollar-a-plate fundraiser at Trump’s Virginia golf club.

· Trump sold a line of Trump-branded UFC medallions for hundreds and – in some cases – thousands of dollars.

· World Liberty Financial was an official sponsor of the event. It’s a Trump-family-created crypto company and issued the stablecoins that some fighters received as bonuses.

· Other corporate sponsors included Crypto.com (its name appeared on each step leading into the cage), Bud Light, Polymarket, Monster Energy, Starlink, EasyPost and Stake.

· Paramount Skydance, the media company owned by Larry and David Ellison, who are friendly with Trump, live-streamed the event (behind a paywall). A few days earlier, Trump’s Justice Department approved Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, thereby bringing CBS, CNN, Paramount+, HBO Max, and a vast film and television studio under David Ellison’s control.

In a post-fight interview, a UFC winner yelled, “Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right America?”

How Far We Have Fallen

Worse than the event itself and Trump’s profiteering is the fact that it happened on White House grounds. While construction was underway, Marine One – the Presidential helicopter – could not land on the South Lawn, its usual location. Fighters used the Executive Office Building and rooms in the White House as locker rooms. If not sacrilegious, it was something close.

President Thomas Jefferson first opened the White House lawn in 1801 when he invited the U.S. Marine Corps Band to perform. Since then, it has been the scene of children’s Easter Egg Rolls (begun by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878), a tennis court (President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902), a performing arts venue (President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965); Willie Nelson’s performance (President Jimmy Carter in 1980), the Beach Boys’ South Lawn Beach Party (President Ronald Reagan in 1983), youth T-ball games (President George H.W. Bush in 2001), and a collaborative arts festival (President Barack Obama in 2016).

The good news is that a recent Reuters poll revealed that only 16 percent of Americans – including one-third of Republicans – said that holding UFC events on the White House lawn was appropriate.

Determined to make his mark, Trump did not care that it would be an ugly blemish on White House history – or another reflection of how far the nation has descended into Trump’s abyss.

[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on June 5, 2026]

by Steven J. Harper

Between March 2023 and December 2024, Todd Blanche earned millions of dollars as Trump’s personal defense lawyer in the Stormy Daniel hush-money case, the Mar-a-Lago documents case, and the election interference case. As Acting Attorney General of the United States, he’s wading through another Trump mess.

And he’s drowning.

The Fund is Dead; Long Live the Fund

On May 18, Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department created an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to settle President Donald Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. Even Senate Republicans rebelled against the prospect of using $1.776 billion in taxpayer money as Trump’s slush fund to pay January 6 insurrectionists.

To quell the uprising that was threatening Trump’s legislative agenda, Blanche met with Republicans on Capitol Hill. He made things worse as the weeklong Memorial Day break began.

Faced with mounting pressure – from the public, congressional Republicans, and two judges who were questioning the Fund’s legality – Blanche told a House committee on June 2 that the Fund was not moving forward.

Some senators found comfort in Blanche’s assurances. But the same day, Trump was asked by the New York Post in a podcast interview whether he had dropped the Fund.

Trump said: “No, a court ruled against” it.

Asked again about the Fund on June 3, Trump answered, “I love it. I think it’s so important.”

But the controversy over the Fund’s status is diverting attention from an issue that is much more important to Trump – and a much bigger problem for Blanche: his signature on a document releasing Trump’s potential tax liabilities.

A Phony Lawsuit Leads to a Collusive Settlement

January 29, 2026: Trump filed a lawsuit against the IRS seeking $10 billion. He claimed that a former IRS contractor had illegally obtained access to and disclosed Trump’s tax returns to media outlets.

In the past, the IRS mounted aggressive defenses to similar claims. Following normal procedure, IRS attorneys prepared a 25-page memorandum outlining the flaws in Trump’s lawsuit and recommending a motion to dismiss it. But the Justice Department didn’t even enter an appearance in the case, much less seek dismissal.

Presiding U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams was concerned that there was no “actual adversity” between the parties because Trump was on both sides of the lawsuit: the President (plaintiff) controlled the IRS (defendant). She ordered Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department to address the obvious conflict of interest by May 20.

May 18: With the court deadline approaching and Blanche’s DOJ struggling internally over a response to Judge Williams’ order, Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of voluntary dismissal. Believing that she had no choice, Judge Williams entered an order dismissing the case. The court observed that “the Notice [of dismissal] does not reference any settlement or include a stipulation of settlement,” and therefore “there is no settlement of record.”

But unbeknownst to Judge Williams, there was a settlement agreement – also dated May 18. In exchange for dismissing his frivolous case, Trump’s Justice Department would create a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”

May 19: Another element of the settlement agreement emerged. It gained less attention but was far more important to Trump. Without fanfare, the Justice Department revealed an Addendum that contained an extraordinary release in favor of Trump and “related or affiliated individuals or parties…” from any matters “currently pending or that could be pending . . . “ before the IRS or other federal government agencies or departments.

The IRS has been a recurring thorn in Trump’s side. In 2022, two of his organizations were found guilty of tax fraud and falsifying business records. The New York Times estimated that the Addendum’s release covered audits that could have cost Trump more than $100 million on just one of his properties.

When asked who came up with the terms for the settlement, Blanche denied that he had a role: “The president has outside counsel, and their counsel, the Department of Justice, not me.”

Except Blanche – and only Blanche – signed the Addendum sealing the deal.

May 29: Judge Williams reacted to a bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges urging her to reopen Trump’s previously dismissed case. The court concluded that it had been presented with “grievous allegations that Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed this litigation solely to avoid judicial scrutiny of a lawsuit that ‘was collusive from the start’ and was only filed to provide the imprimatur of legality for an unlawful settlement.” She cited allegations that the IRS did not “‘even try[] to defend against Plaintiffs’ claims’ despite their active opposition to nearly identical claims in other litigation” and that “Plaintiffs’ claims were ‘clearly untimely’ and therefore untenable.”

Judge Williams ordered Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department to address allegations that they had: 1) filed a collusive suit; 2) premised the earlier dismissal notice on deception; and 3) made the court a victim of fraud.

Footnote two of the court’s order focused on Blanche:

“This addendum, as the non-party movants point out, may be in conflict with internal Department of Justice policies that require the Department to only enter into compromises that are ‘specifically limited to the immediate subject matter of the claim which was in fact compromised.’ The addendum was signed only by the Acting Attorney General [Todd Blanche].” (Emphasis supplied)

Blanche’s Problems Grow

Apart from Blanche’s conflict of interest problem, under DOJ policy dating to 1934, the Attorney General doesn’t even have the legal authority to stop civil tax audits. And after the revelations of President Richard Nixon’s abuse of the IRS, it has been “unlawful for the President and any employee of the Executive Office of the President, among other officials, to directly or indirectly request that the IRS terminate any ongoing audit or investigation of any particular taxpayer.” (Emphasis in original)

If Judge Williams concludes that Trump’s lawyers and/or Justice Department attorneys deceived her in connection with the original dismissal of the case, even voiding the settlement in its entirety won’t end the matter. The consequences of a lawyer misleading the court survive the case in which it occurs, and those consequences can be profound.

The Addendum gives Trump a stunning victory. And Todd Blanche – who still operates as if he were Trump’s personal attorney – now has stunning legal problems of his own.

It’s a classic Trump outcome: Trump wins; his loyalist loses.

To reach my Substack, click this link:  https://stevenjharper.substack.com

Steven J. Harper, an attorney, former partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and former adjunct professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, is the author of The Lawyer Bubble — A Profession in Crisis and Crossing Hoffa — A Teamster’s Story. His op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, USA Today, Crain’s, The Hill, Common Dreams, and other publications. He has been a columnist for Moyers on Democracy, Dan Rather’s News & Guts, and The American Lawyer. Website: https://thelawyerbubble.com. Substack:  https://stevenjharper.substack.com

[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on February 26, 2026.]

by Steven J. Harper

Incompetence will be President Donald Trump’s undoing. The only question is whether he and his minions will undo the nation first. Today’s subject is Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Bondi’s Blunders and Bluster

In her first year, Bondi has established an unprecedented record of destruction in the service of Trump. Servitude is more apt. Here’s a small sample:

· Thousands of experienced attorneys have left the Justice Department. Bondi fired those she deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump. Others resigned in protest over her directives, such as investigating the partner of Renee Nicole Good – a U.S. citizen whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota killed – rather than scrutinizing the actions of her ICE killers.

· Bondi has decimated the department’s civil rights division, which historically investigated whether federal officers had used excessive force in killings like Good’s. As division head Harmeet Dhillon turned its mission upside down, more than 70 percent of its attorneys left. University of Chicago Law School Professor Craig Futterman explained that the Trump administration “is using a division that has a history of protecting the most vulnerable among us to wage an all-out assault on the civil rights of vulnerable people, including Black people, brown people, women, LGBTQIA folk.”

· Across the country, judges are chastising federal prosecutors for defying court orders and are wondering if the problem is incompetence, work overload, or the executive branch’s systematic attack on the judiciary. At least 35 times since August, federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to explain why it should not be punished for violating their orders in immigration cases: “Antiseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice to what is happening,” Judge Joseph R. Goodwin in West Virginia wrote, calling the warrantless arrest and imprisonment of thousands across the country “an assault on the constitutional order.”

· On Capitol Hill, Bondi refused to answer pointed questions and, instead, descended into bipartisan insults of the elected representatives who dared to challenge her. When ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a constitutional law professor, told her not to filibuster through his limited time for questioning, she snapped, “You don’t tell me anything, you washed up loser lawyer.” She called Republican Thomas Massie (R-KY) a “failed politician” who had “Trump derangement syndrome.”

· Bipartisan outrage grows over Bondi’s incompetent and incomplete production of the Justice Department’s infamous Jeffrey Epstein files. It took Rep. Massie and a handful of fellow Republicans in the House to overcome the opposition of Trump and his congressional allies in forcing legislation requiring full disclosure by December 19, 2025. That deadline came and went before Bondi’s department finally produced files that included victims’ identities. The public learned on February 24th that the Justice Department’s belated 3.5 million-page document dump excluded files relating to allegations that Trump sexually abused a minor, according to an NPR analysis and the New York Times.

Bondi’s Backstory

[To continue reading, please click here to reach my Substack page: [no paywall]:

https://stevenjharper.substack.com/p/pam-bondis-blind-obedience

[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on November 26, 2025.]

by Steven J. Harper

In the service of President Donald Trump, Lindsay Halligan, Trump’s second interim appointment as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, may lose her license to practice law.

Who is Halligan?

Competence is a key requirement for obtaining and retaining a law license. But nothing in Halligan’s education, experience, or training qualified her to prosecute federal crimes, much less lead a U.S. Attorney’s office of more than 300 attorneys and staff in four divisions in Alexandria, Richmond, Norfolk, and Newport News. For starters, she has never tried a criminal case. But Trump always prefers loyalty over competence.

Halligan attended a private Catholic high school and a Jesuit university where she studied politics and broadcast journalism. She competed in the Miss Colorado USA pageant in 2009 and 2010 and received her law degree from the University of Miami School of Law. Upon graduation, she went to work in a Miami law firm, representing insurance companies against homeowners and businesses.

Halligan met Trump in November 2021 at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. In early 2022, he made her part of his legal team on the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

After the election, she worked on Trump’s project to whitewash U.S. history by cleansing the Smithsonian Institution of historically accurate but unpleasant facts. In August, she co-signed a letter instructing eight of the Smithsonian’s museums to replace exhibits that include “divisive or ideologically driven” material with “unifying, historically accurate” displays.

Answering Trump’s Call…

Based on the weakness of the cases against former FBI director James Comey and another Trump target, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Trump’s first interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Eric S. Siebert, refused his demand to indict them. Trump responded by declaring that he wanted Siebert “out.” Hours later, he resigned.

With the statute of limitations on charges against Comey expiring in days, Trump told Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint 36-year-old Halligan – a senior White House staff secretary and special assistant to the President – as Siebert’s replacement.

“Lindsay Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you a lot,” Trump posted in a public message to Bondi.

[To continue reading, please click here to reach my Substack page: [no paywall]:

https://stevenjharper.substack.com/p/the-tragic-case-of-a-very-incompetent

[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on November -, 2025.]

by Steven J. Harper

It can’t happen here.

I live in a quiet, affluent suburb just north of Chicago. Our house is on a brick street, surrounded by well-maintained homes with manicured lawns.

On Halloween day, leaves from 100-year-old oak and maple trees were turning yellow, amber, red, and orange. Landscapers with lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and rakes had begun annual fall cleanups. The setting resembled a Normal Rockwell painting.

As an attorney, I’m trained to make distinctions. A legal precedent that otherwise seems problematic can become irrelevant if the advocate can persuade the court to distinguish it. “The facts of that case are distinguishable from this one, your Honor” is every litigator’s rhetorical tool.

But that skill is fraught with dangerous traps. Distinctions in the service of selective perception and confirmation bias can facilitate complacency.

It Can’t Happen Here

I’ve followed President Donald Trump’s deployment of the military on America’s streets. I watched the Los Angeles mobilization. The chaos and violence was and is disturbing, to say the least. But California is distinguishable from Chicago. For starters, it’s two thousand miles away.

That can’t happen here.

When Trump sent troops into Washington, D.C., that was distinguishable too. D.C. is a special situation where the federal government has unique powers.

Portland? Again, it’s thousands of miles away.

That can’t happen here. Besides, I had faith that the courts would keep Trump’s troops from running amok.

It Can Happen Here

Before Trump moved his fight to Chicago, he posted ominously: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning … Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

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