Regarding the Feb. 13 front-page article “President attacks judge who will sentence Stone”:
Mr. Trump is jeopardizing the rule of law. Federal judges are rightly fighting back — and the whole legal community should follow their lead.
Chief U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell of Washington publicly defended Judge Jackson’s well-earned reputation for fairness. The 1,100-member Federal Judges Association scheduled an unprecedented emergency meeting to address the president’s blatant intrusion into criminal cases that involve his political allies. Judge Paul L. Friedman, another esteemed senior district judge on the federal court, recently observed, “We are in uncharted territory. This is not normal.”
Nor is it acceptable.
I urge all lawyers, including state attorneys general and local prosecutors, to honor their professional and ethical obligation to protect our legal system. We must be courageous and publicly demand that Mr. Trump immediately stop his attacks on the judiciary.
As the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. remarked about our country’s civil rights struggle, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Karl A. Racine, Washington
The writer, a Democrat,
is the D.C. attorney general.
