Trump is using executive orders to punish critics, extort civil society institutions, centralize power and create pretexts for investigations

Civil society has already shown signs of folding as law firms and universities have bent the knee to protect themselves, leaving open the possibility of a snowball effect of collapsing opposition.

Three law firms so far have struck deals with the administration to either make an executive order punishing them go away, or to protect themselves ahead of time. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, the first firm to reach such a deal, set the precedent when it entered into an agreement to provide $40 million in pro bono services to the administration in exchange for Trump rescinding an order punishing it.

“Once Paul, Weiss folded, now there’s a model for action that can be built upon because every other firm has a signal that if you’re targeted by the administration here are the things you need in order to get out of the crosshairs,” said Scott Cummings, a professor of legal ethics at UCLA School of Law.

Trump also directed the Department of Justice to seek sanctions and disciplinary action against lawyers who bring “frivolous” litigation, in this case meaning lawsuits against his administration. Most concerning is what that order labels as frivolous: It specifically calls out “the immigration bar, and powerful Big Law pro bono practices” as engaged in “fraud,” opening up any lawyer or law firm practicing immigration law to legal threats, blackmail and sanctions at the same time that the administration takes a harshly anti-immigrant stance.

“To me that’s the real central lever that that order is using,” Cummings said. “It’s targeting the firms by disabling them from doing work based on the fact that Trump doesn’t want people to represent immigrants to make legally authorized claims to remain in the United States. That’s overruling the rule of law.”

Universities have also acquiesced. Columbia University agreed to essentially hand over control to Trump, particularly on matters of protest policies and oversight of its Middle Eastern studies department, in exchange for him releasing $400 million in federal research grants. Harvard University signaled on Tuesday that it is also looking to make good with the administration over pretextual complaints of antisemitism on campus. The administration has already launched investigations into 60 universities on pretextual claims of antisemitism.

“These acts of taking critical resources hostage and demanding behavior that amounts to a degree of self-silencing and political sidelining, that’s textbook authoritarian behavior,” Levitsky said.
Trump’s efforts to subvert civil society also extends to the political arena, where Democratic Party-affiliated groups, particularly those that might fund or organize his opposition, like the campaign contribution processor ActBlue and donor networks like Arabella Advisors, have come in the crosshairs.

“What we are seeing is an emboldened administration that is launching a coordinated attack going after all of the mechanisms slowing down Trump in his first administration,” said Cole Leiter, executive director of Americans Against Government Censorship, a liberal group organizing against Trump’s targeting of civil society and his political opposition.