March 4 (UPI) — The American Bar Association is calling out efforts by the Trump administration to undermine the U.S. justice system, as the world’s richest man and President Donald Trump ally, Elon Musk, has repeatedly attacked judges who issue rulings against the government.
In a statement on Monday, the nonpartisan legal association said it “will not stay silent in the face of efforts to remake the legal profession into something that rewards those who agree with the government and punishes those who do not.”
Describing the attacks as intended to “cow” American judges, courts and the legal profession, the association stated, “these efforts cannot be sanctioned or normalized.”
The statement does not mention Trump or Musk by name, but describes the effort to delegitimize the U.S. judicial system as being done through “government actions.”
“We may disagree with interpretations of case law, but it is unacceptable to personally target judges just because we disagree with their rulings,” said American Bar Association President William Bay in the statement.
The statement comes as Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency, has repeatedly used his X social media platform to issue scathing attacks against judges who have ruled against the Trump administration.
He has called the rulings “an attempted coup of American democracy by left activists posing as judges” and has stated that they should be fired when they “egregiously undermine the democratic will of the people.” He has also called for judges — whom he has labled corrupt, without providing evidence — to be “impeached NOW!”
“If ANY judge ANYWHERE can block EVERY Presidential order EVERYWHERE, we do NOT have democracy, we have TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY,” Musk wrote in a post on X late last month.
Other Republican politicians have made similar claims, and there are growing fears, particularly among Democrats, that the United States may face a constitutional crisis if the Trump administration decides to flout judicial orders.
“Justice Department lawyers and assistant U.S. attorneys have been the subject of personal attacks, intimidation, firings and demotions for simply fulfilling their professional responsibilities,” the American Bar Association said. “It is especially disturbing because the government has espoused publicly that it will not weaponize or politicize the Justice Department.”
The law association, founded in 1878, specifically called out a Trump executive order that “targeted” legal and medical organizations over their advocacy for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as another order signed late last month suspending security clearances held by lawyers at a firm associated with special counsel Jack Smith, who prosecuted Trump.
“We support the rights of people to advance their interests in courts of law when they have been wronged. We reject the notion that the government can punish lawyers who represent certain clients or punish judges who rule certain ways,” the American Bar Association said. “We cannot accept government actions that seek to tip the scales of justice in this manner.”
