Why this Administration has no Respect for the Rule of Law

RBR sent me a note off-blog telling me of something unbelievable. I had to look it up. A deputy assistant secretary of Defense Charles Stimson has urged that major corporations boycott twelve major law firms whose lawyers volunteered to participate in the defense of the detainees at Guantanamo. He said that CEOs of major corporations (read: Republicans) should boycott these major law firms which "defended terrorists."

"And I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms."

This is a major assault on the independent judiciary, the rule of law, and all civil liberties. It is fundamental to the rule of law that each person has the right to a defense, no matter how much the government wants to get rid of him or her. Trying to deprive us of the right to hire big law firms in our defense is a huge assault on freedom. Every lawyer represents unsavory people from time to time. This is the same crap that public defenders always deal with from ignorant Republicans who don't see why you should represent "criminals" - then hire their own attorneys with glee when they are accused of tax fraud. This is also an attempt to stop lawyers at big firms from doing pro bono work for any organization that might oppose Republicans. No doubt Fox News, the Washington Times, and the National Review will help to make this happen. I can assure you that if I were to suggest to my higher-ups at my big national law firm that I do pro bono work for civil liberties, it will be strongly discouraged in a way it never would have been beforehand. I should add that there is a very long tradition of permitting lawyers to do pro bono work as they see fit. The only issues are real business issues. Law firms tend to be divided into labor or management firms, for example, and their attorneys are not expected to advocate against the interests of the major clients. But nobody has tried to launch a campaign to prevent major law firms from selling their services to bidders of politically unpopular (read: anything but far right) persuasions.

According to another website, these are the firms he named:

Pillsbury Winthrop, Jenner & Block, Hunton & Williams, Alston & Bird, Cutler Pickering, Weil Gotshal, Paul Weiss Rifkin, Covington & Burling, Mayer Brown, Pepper Hamilton, Perkins Cole, Fulbright Jaworski, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, and Venable . For those of you who don't know, these are all major law firms, some even known as "Republican" firms (firms with DC offices have to choose, generally, between representing Dems or Republicans for conflict-of-interest reasons, but they usually try to downplay these associations). I work for a firm whose name would normally be in this list.

The DoD is "distancing" itself from these comments, but won't fire the bastard. Why? Because they largely agree with him. Fundamentally, these Republicans and neocons think that democracy is too weak deal with "the real world," and that things like civil rights and the judiciary are left-wing tools that weaken us. This is what fascism really is. The belief that our safety lies in Strong Men Willing to Make Hard Choices (e.g., the TV show 24) rather than the Rule of Law, Democracy, and Liberty.