Conservative Lawyers Say Trump Has Undermined the Rule of Law

President Trump last week in Washington. Some members of the Federalist Society are urging their fellow conservatives to speak up about what they say are the Trump administration’s betrayals of bedrock legal norms.Credit: Sarah Silbiger, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The annual convention of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, has long been a glittering and bustling affair. In the Trump era, though, the group has become more powerful than ever, supplying intellectual energy and judicial candidates to an assertive administration eager to reshape the legal landscape.

But as the group prepares to gather on Thursday for the start of this year’s convention, more than a dozen prominent conservative lawyers have joined together to sound a note of caution. They are urging their fellow conservatives to speak up about what they say are the Trump administration’s betrayals of bedrock legal norms.

“Conservative lawyers are not doing enough to protect constitutional principles that are being undermined by the statements and actions of this president,” said John B. Bellinger III, a top State Department and White House lawyer under President George W. Bush.

View the complete November 14 article by Adam Liptak on The New York Times website here.