The DOJ has gone into silent mode about the Epstein files, hoping that Trump’s illegal war on Iran will provide cover for Pam Bondi’s cover-up of Trump’s involvement in Epstein’s sex trafficking enterprise. As we continue to raise our voices in the streets, justice for the Epstein victims and accountability for the perpetrators must be part of our messaging. We cannot look away from one set of crimes because of the unfolding disaster in the Middle East.
Attention has understandably shifted to Trump’s illegal war as the US lost six service members and three fighter jets (shot down by “friendly fire” from Kuwait). The US/Israeli attacks on Iran have killed 555 Iranians, including 180 students and staff killed at a girls’ school in the initial missile salvo on Saturday. Iran has “closed” the Strait of Hormuz through which 30% of the world’s oil transits. Hezbollah has attacked Israel from bases in Lebanon. Israel has retaliated with missiles directed at Hezbollah bases in Beirut. The US Embassy in Saudi Arabia was hit and set ablaze by two drones.
As the situation in the Middle East spirals out of control, Trump administration officials provided conflicting and circular rationales for attacking Iran.
Trump sent a formal notice to Congress as required by the War Powers Act. The letter is here. It is mostly throat-clearing surplusage. The substance of Trump’s explanation for the attack on Iran is the following brief sentence:
Despite my Administration’s repeated efforts to achieve a diplomatic solution to Iran’s malign behavior, the threat to the United States and its allies and partners became untenable.
That’s it. No “imminent threat.” No “self-defense.” No statutory authorization. No reliance on an Authorized Use of Military Force declaration. No reference to a mutual defense obligation. Nothing. Just, “the threat became untenable.”
The analysis of the war’s illegality could and should stop there. The above is the totality of Trump’s justification to Congress. Saying a threat is “untenable” is no basis for starting a war under the Constitution or the UN Charter.
But Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegeth both attempted to backfill Trump’s patently unlawful explanation.
Hegseth, like Trump, failed to note any imminent threat that would justify self-defense. The closest he came to providing a rationale was to identify a vague, future threat:
Iran was building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions. Our bases, our people, our allies, all in their crosshairs. Iran had a conventional gun to our head as they tried to lie their way to a nuclear bomb.
Marco Rubio offered a third articulation of the reason for the US strike. He said that the US launched its attack because Israel was planning to strike Iran. See The Guardian, US strikes on Iran triggered by Israel’s plan to launch attack, Rubio says.
Per the Guardian, Rubio said,
We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
According to Rubio’s account, the US did not decide to go to war with Iran; instead, Israel effectively decided that the US would need to preemptively attack Iran to guard against retaliation precipitated by a planned Israeli attack against Iran. Rubio’s account is consistent with reporting in the Washington Post, Push from Saudis, Israel helped move Trump to attack Iran.
Per WaPo,
President Donald Trump launched Saturday’s wide-ranging attack on Iran after a weeks-long lobbying effort by an unusual pair of U.S. allies in the Middle East — Israel and Saudi Arabia — according to four people familiar with the matter, as Israeli and U.S. forces teamed to topple Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei after nearly four decades in power.
Even assuming that Rubio’s circular, self-fulfilling rationale is true—“Israel was going to attack, so we had to attack first”--it does not explain why the attack killed most of Iran’s senior civilian and military leadership—a clear attempt at regime change. Indeed, Trump has invited the Iranian people to rise up against their leaders—but apparently has no intention of helping them do so. See Politico, Will Iranians Rise Up? Here Are the Odds.
Trump said,
When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations.
But what Trump did not say is that the US would help the Iranian people overthrow the regime. Hegseth disclaimed regime change as the attack’s end goal. Which leaves the Iranian people facing US and Israeli missiles, a fractured Iranian military, roving paramilitaries, no access to the internet, and a historic drought affecting much of the country.
So, where does that leave us—the people, who grant their consent to the government to act on our behalf?
Democrats will bring motions in both chambers of Congress to invoke the War Powers Act, which—if passed--would put a time limit on the operations in Iran. See Roll Call, This week: Iran war powers, DHS funding top congressional agenda. If the resolution were to pass in either chamber, it would be a political and moral rebuke to Trump.
But Trump could veto the resolution. It is doubtful that Congress would override such a veto. Per NPR, “As it stands, it’s unclear whether there is enough support for initial passage, not to mention the two-thirds majority needed in both chambers to override a veto.
So, as usual, it is up to us. We need to flood the streets with tens of millions of Americans demanding, “No war.” As usual, Indivisible is taking the lead, calling on Americans to join the March 28 “No Kings” protests and to demand that their elected officials perform their constitutional oversight duties. The following is a snippet from a letter that Indivisible sent on Monday:
1. Use Indivisible’s tools to contact your Members of Congress immediately:
2. Build for No Kings III later this month. We need to make this the largest protest in American history.
Public sentiment is already running strongly against Trump. His failure to seek congressional authorization and to explain to the American people why—if at all—it was in the US’s national interest to begin a war against Iran. See YouGov poll, How Americans feel about the U.S. attack on Iran.
Per YouGov,
More Americans strongly or somewhat disapprove of the U.S. attacking Iran (48%) than approve of it (37%). Democrats are overwhelmingly critical of the attacks (11% approve and 78% disapprove), while Republicans are equally likely to approve (76% vs. 10%).
Democrats are more likely to strongly disapprove of the attacks than Republicans are to strongly approve of them (65% vs. 53%). Most Republicans who say they’re MAGA supporters strongly approve of the attacks (65%), compared to only 27% of non-MAGA Republicans. Non-MAGA Republicans are more likely to say they somewhat approve of the attacks.
[Update: CNN/SRSS conducted a poll and found that 59% of Americans disapprove of the strikes on Iran. See CNN poll: 59% of Americans disapprove of Iran strikes and most think a long-term conflict is likely. The poll was conducted on Saturday.]
While there is a strong partisan split in the YouGov poll, the high point for support for most wars is their earliest days—before mounting casualties and the grim reality of the war pierce the consciousness of the American people.
As with almost everything he has touched, Trump has broken his campaign promises, betrayed America and our allies to advance his financial interests, and acted in a reckless manner with the lives, health, and safety of the American people. We must raise our voices by the tens of millions in order to stop Trump’s unlawful reign of terror.
Legal Developments
There were several legal developments that deserve comment. But first, I want to return once more, this time with feeling, to the question of whether the Court will likely invalidate any attempt by Trump to control the midterms by executive order. I have argued strenuously and repeatedly that I believe the Court will overrule any effort by Trump to control elections by presidential fiat.
For reasons that escape me, that opinion seems to upset some readers. I have received sharp criticism saying either that I was being “too hopeful” or that I needed to “prove” that Trump wouldn’t interfere in the 2026 elections. Putting aside the fact that I acknowledge that Trump will try to interfere, my point is that (a) the Supreme Court will likely stop him, and (b) if the Court doesn’t, we will.
On Tuesday, Joyce Vance weighed in on the question of whether the Supreme Court would stop Trump from interfering in the midterms by issuing an executive order. In a Substack livestream, former Senator Jon Tester asked Vance what she thought would happen if Trump tried to use an executive order to interfere in the elections. In her answer, Vance invoked an ancient legal maxim, saying,
If Donald Trump issues an executive order taking over elections, he will get the crap smacked out of him in the Court.
See Joyce Vance, Substack Live with Former Senator John Tester and Journalist Maritsa Georgiou. See Vance’s remarks in the video beginning at the 23:50 minute mark.
After her unusually strong opening statement, Vance goes on to explain at length the legal basis for her conclusion. Watch the video for the next eight minutes to hear Vance’s complete rationale (or better yet, watch the entire video).
Joyce Vance is one of the most respected, even-handed, thoughtful legal commentators anywhere in the media. If she has a strong opinion, it counts for a lot.
Nothing is certain in life, so no one can give any guarantees about the Supreme Court. But I will give one: If we don’t quit, we will win. It is just a matter of time.
Speaking of not quitting, the administration dropped its appeal of its punitive sanctions against several law firms that refused to bend the knee to Trump. See WSJ, Trump Administration Drops Defense of Law Firm Sanctions (Gift article accessible to all.)
Per the WSJ,
The Trump administration on Monday abandoned its defense of the president’s executive orders sanctioning several law firms, punctuating a year of turmoil that rocked the legal industry and forced its leaders to choose between taking on the White House or capitulating.
In a court filing, the Justice Department said it was dropping its appeals of four trial-court rulings that struck down Trump’s actions against law firms Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie, and Susman Godfrey. The move came just days before the Justice Department’s opening brief was due in an appeal of the four cases, which were consolidated before a federal court in Washington.
First, congratulations and thank you (!) to the firms that stood up to Trump: Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie, and Susman Godfrey. The principled stand of those firms (and a few others, like the Elias Law Group) effectively put a stop to Trump's blackmail of global law firms, most of whom jettisoned their commitments to diversity and inclusion in hiring and promotion to protect their profits.
Per Business Insider, the firms that capitulated to Trump by revoking their commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace include:
Paul Weiss
Skadden Arps
Latham & Watkins
Kirkland & Ellis
Milbank
Willkie Farr & Gallagher
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft
A&O Shearman
Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett
Together, those firms pledged to devote hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono work as part of the “settlements” with Trump. Although the agreements lacked specificity about how those pro bono efforts would be expended, Trump expected the firms to devote their efforts to conservative legal causes and to cases directed by the administration. For example, in announcing the Paul Weiss settlement, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the “pro bono legal concessions [would go] toward implementing [Trump’s] America First agenda.”
The damage done by the Capitulating Law Firms to democracy was immense. Their collapse occurred at a time when Trump was crushing and decimating the guardrails of democracy—the DOJ, business leaders, corporations, universities, and charitable organizations. The near-total collapse of the legal industry inflicted a psychic wound on American democracy that will take a generation to erase. The Masters of the Universe turned out to be paper tigers, folding under baseless threats to their partners’ profits.
All it took for Trump to stop his anti-DEI campaign against Big Law was for a handful of firms to say, “No.” If only Paul Weiss, Skadden, Latham and the other Capitulating Law Firms said “No,” as well.
The lesson? This all stops when enough of us say, “No.” Just ask the legal profession.
Finally, the Supreme Court used its “shadow docket” (again) to give an advantage to Republicans in a ruling that violated the Court’s own rules of restraint. In a shocking turn of events, the Supreme Court intervened in a New York state court case before the state’s highest court had considered the trial court’s order. Doing so violates bedrock principles of federalism and judicial restraint (the Purcell doctrine)—and had the added benefit (for MAGA) of effectively overturning a state court decision that drew favorable district lines for minority voters. See Law Dork, SCOTUS conservatives block California gender-identity student protections, N.Y. map change.
Justice Sotomayor calls out the hypocrisy of the reactionary majority, writing,
The Court’s 101-word unexplained order can be summarized in just 7: “Rules for thee, but not for me.” Time and again, this Court has said that federal courts have limited jurisdiction. Time and again, this Court has said that federal courts should not interfere with state-court litigation. Time and again, this Court has said that federal courts should not meddle with state election laws ahead of an election. Today, the Court says: except for this one, except for this one, and except for this one. Ignoring every limit on federal courts’ authority, the Court takes the unprecedented step of staying a state trial court’s decision in a redistricting dispute on matters of state law without giving the State’s highest court a chance to act. Because that order violates basic principles of jurisdiction, federalism, and equity, I respectfully dissent.
The majority’s brief order was accompanied by a screed authored by Justice Alito, which reads like a preview of a nightmare decision in the Louisiana v. Callais case, which is expected to be released shortly. The only way to quickly reverse the capture of the Court by MAGA is to expand it to a size sufficient to dilute, out-vote, and overrule the reactionary majority.
There are more developments in the Supreme Court, but I have run out of time. More tomorrow.
Concluding Thoughts
The victory of Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie, Susman Godfrey and The Elias Law Group should inspire us all. The legal profession was collapsing. A small handful of firms stood on principle and defended the rule of law. Trump relented and stopped his anti-DEI rampage. Now, days before the administration’s appellate brief is due, the administration has surrendered, effectively conceding it had no basis for its actions.
The single most important thing we can do during this challenging time is to lead by example. A handful of law firms did just that—and gave us hope. Let’s follow their example and give others hope. Stand up, stand out, show up, and speak out. If we do, others will follow.
