Attacks and Threats on Democracy and Rule of Law

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, after Donald Trump and his co- president Elon Musk took office on January 20, Democrats in Congress realized that we were engaged in a multifaceted struggle to protect and defend everyday Americans from the harm being inflicted by this reckless and cruel administration.

It was an all-hands-on-deck moment with roles for Congress, the courts, and for we the people.

On February 10, House Democratic Party Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries formally established the Rapid Response Task Force and Litigation Working Group, chaired by assistant leader Joe Neguse and co-chaired by Representatives Rosa DeLauro, Gerry Connolly, and Jamie Raskin.

The task force itself is also a multifaceted defense of our democracy with its 45 Members participating in various working groups. I participate in the Litigation Working Group that brainstorms ideas for amicus briefs where Congress' perspective would be especially important and useful to the courts such as when the Trump administration tramples upon Congress' constitutional powers by ignoring the will of Congress as expressed by legislation that directs that a certain thing be done.

When Congress passes legislation and that legislation is signed into law, then whoever is President is charged with the responsibility of taking care that that law is faithfully executed. The President does not have the power to nullify a law passed by Congress, but this President is willfully acting like a dictator and the Litigation Working Group is working to stop this President from acting unlawfully and unconstitutionally.

We are seeing great success in the courts, which is why this President is now attacking the judiciary and attacking judges, and we will talk about that later during this Special Order hour, which I have been asked to lead.

I also participate in a hearings working group that sets up hearings across the Nation to highlight how this administration's unlawful and unconstitutional actions are affecting everyday people. Importantly for tonight, I participate in the Special Order hour working group, where my fellow Representatives and I organize time to speak on topics of urgent importance so that the American public can be informed about the harm this administration is causing, our thoughts about it, and what we can do about it, both here in the Halls of Congress and in the courts as well as in the streets.

Tonight, the topic I feel most urgency around is illuminating the ways that the Trump administration is destroying democracy through its attack on the rule of law.

As a young man, I decided to become a lawyer. Actually, as a child, I was 4 years old when my hero, my mentor, my cousin--we called him Tokey, but his name was Archibald Hill--I was 4 years old when he graduated from law school and became a lawyer. When that happened, I decided at that tender age of 4 years old that I wanted to be just like him. I wanted to be an attorney also.

Archibald went out to Oklahoma and set up his homebase there in Oklahoma City, and he hung out his shingle as a solo practitioner and began to practice criminal defense law, and me, being his acolyte, his fan, wanted to be just like him. I decided I was going to open up my law firm and practice criminal defense law just like him.

I believed in due process. I believed that if government accused you of a crime, you had a right to a trial by a jury of your peers and the prosecutor had the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt before the jury was authorized to convict. The government could not just accuse you of something without evidence, lock you up, and throw away the key without due process.

I believe in the rule of law and I believe in the Constitution, which undergirds the rule of law. I believe in equal protection under the law. As a lawyer, I fought for my clients in court, ensuring they received due process and equal protection under the law that they were entitled to.

I administered our system of justice as a magistrate court judge, upholding the law without fear or favor. That is the America that I love, one where everyone in this country feels secure enough in our rights to speak their mind and to live freely.

I am deeply disturbed about the devolution that I am seeing taking place right now in terms of the rule of law and justice in this country.

Unfortunately, this is what we are seeing under this Trump reign of terror. In only 100 days, there has been an onslaught of attacks on the judiciary and the rule of law. Trump is using the Department of Justice to carry out a campaign of terror, retribution, and vengeance.

Trump is perverting his Justice Department away from administering justice into an outfit that is only there to prosecute his personal vendettas, punish his enemies, and award his friends.

He has installed to do his bidding banana republic cronies like Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, who are more than willing to carry out Trump's abuse of the justice system. Under their reign, dozens of prosecutors were targeted, identified, and fired simply because they had worked on the January 6 insurrection cases.

The FBI turned over a list of 4,000 current and former FBI personnel who worked on the January 6 cases so that they too could be targeted for firing. When the pardon attorney refused to recommend restoring the gun rights of one of President Trump's supporters, who was also a convicted domestic violence perpetrator, guess what? She was fired too. When she was called to testify as a whistleblower about her termination, she was called by Democrats to Congress. Then the Friday night before the Monday she was to show up in Congress, armed law enforcement agents were directed to show up at her house on a Friday night, late, knocking on her door, and they tried to intimidate her out of testifying.

It didn't work, I am happy to report. The DOJ is also opening investigations to intimidate other whistleblowers from speaking up and to punish those who already have. The Department of Justice has opened investigations into a lawyer who previously prosecuted Trump's friends. They are investigating a Governor who opposed Trump. They are investigating the New York attorney general, the New Jersey attorney general, and also United States Representatives and Senators who have spoken out against the Trump administration.

Trump has directed the Department of Justice to investigate Chris Krebs because Chris Krebs told the truth that the 2020 election was safe and secure.

Just within the last week, the Attorney General issued legal guidelines that allowed the Justice Department to subpoena reporters' personal communications without notice and to criminally prosecute any government employees who are seen as undermining the administration's views.

The message is clear: If you say anything negative about the king, then you are not safe. This reign of terror is what we are talking about tonight.

Stansbury), who I am glad has joined me this evening.

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for those very thoughtful comments. The terror that inflicts my colleagues on the other side of the aisle so that they find it impossible to muster the courage to speak out when they see something wrong and hear something wrong and, you know, everything going against their morals-- they know it is wrong, but yet they can't speak out--they are victims of this reign of terror, although I don't absolve them of responsibility for having no courage.

They should have courage, just like the law firms that have been targeted by the Trump administration. Some of those law firms have protested, but others have yielded to the terror. He is threatening these very powerful and wealthy, corporate-representing law firms with investigations, with revocation of security clearances, with termination of government contracts or funding, with bans from accessing government buildings, and hiring bans.

Some of these law firms are standing up and suing the Trump administration for this unlawful behavior, law firms like Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey, and WilmerHale; but a raft of other law firms, like Paul, Weiss, Skadden, and Latham, bent the knee and laid down because they were too afraid of this administration destroying their businesses.

I mean, here are a number of big, bad, powerful, wealthy law firms that can't even use the law to protect themselves, afraid to use the law to protect themselves. What makes their clients think that those law firms that bent a knee to Trump will represent their interests? I don't know. Only time will tell what happens to those firms that capitulated.

In the first Trump administration, law firms were part of the huge effort by the legal community to challenge unconstitutional policies of the Trump administration, like the Muslim ban, but this time around the Trump administration is going to make sure that that doesn't happen. That is why they are threatening these law firms and making them heel and forcing them to come to the table and capitulate and roll over and let him rub their soft bellies. They won't be involved in protecting the people against Trump's excesses this time around.

Not only that, but as part of their deal with Trump, these law firms promised nearly a billion dollars in pro bono work, but only for the causes that Trump cares about. Now, pro bono means ``for the public good,'' but apparently Trump and the law firms that he has punked out think it just means free legal work for Trump. Trump has punked these big, powerful, and wealthy law firms into providing free labor to help him negotiate trade deals, to help him revive the coal industry, and to help his friend Elon Musk, the billionaire, as he wields a chainsaw through his position as head of the Department of Government Efficiency.

White House officials have said the pro bono work could be used toward representing Trump himself or his allies. Just last night, one of Trump's executive orders directed the Attorney General to use this private sector pro bono work that he has extracted to represent him so that they would defend law enforcement officers who are charged with offenses in the performance of their official duties.

Let me translate that. That means--okay, you remember George Floyd, who was murdered by an officer who wouldn't take his knee off of George Floyd's neck until he suffocated. You all remember that. You all remember Breonna Taylor, who was shot and killed in her bed after a botched, no-knock drug raid; or Tyre Nichols, who was beaten to death after a traffic stop.

Under the new Trump regime, the DOJ would conscript private law firms to, for free, represent those police officers against the families of the victims of police brutality. That is not the way the Department of Justice should work, and that is not the way that big, powerful law firms should work. They should choose the clients that they want to represent, not Donald Trump choosing their clients and causes for them.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Goldman), my good friend, a former prosecutor. He has some things that he wants to tell you.

Mr. GOLDMAN of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. Johnson, for organizing this incredibly important Special Order hour to highlight the absolutely unprecedented and devastating attacks on our democracy and on the rule of law.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to sound the alarm that our democratic values and the rule of law are under attack. We all must open our eyes before we find ourselves in Vladimir Putin's Russia. In just 100 days, President Trump has engaged in a coordinated, premeditated, deliberate attempt to dismantle our government.

Let's be very clear: Donald Trump does not seek to lead us. He seeks to rule us, and we all must open our eyes. Since he first came into office, President Trump has persistently attacked the media to undermine the credibility of the messenger of news that he didn't like.

Then, during Special Counsel Mueller's investigation on Russia's interference in the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump's campaign, President Trump attacked the FBI relentlessly, trying to undermine its credibility.

Rather than debate the facts or the evidence, which he knows he would lose, isn't it just a lot easier to simply shoot the messenger and claim that everything bad about you is just fake news?

Mr. Speaker, while many, rightly, have been focusing on the arbitrary and devastating cuts to essential Federal programs or the disastrous and reckless tariffs that have increased prices and inflation and have tanked the economy, President Trump's first 100 days have also escalated this relentless assault on the checks and balances that have been the foundation of our great Nation.

On day one, he pardoned more than 1,500 criminals who stormed this very building on January 6. Hundreds of them were convicted of violently assaulting law enforcement officers. It was a blatant and disgusting disregard for the rule of law and for our fine men and women in uniform.

Next, during his first week, he fired nearly 20 inspectors general, the independent watchdogs in the executive branch agencies. It is their responsibility to ensure that those agencies follow the law.

Then he went after the Department of Justice and the FBI. He fired prosecutors and special agents who investigated his criminal conduct. They simply did their job. He then turned to the Public Integrity Section, the renowned and venerable institution that was created after Watergate to be an independent investigative body of public officials.

He and his administration have also been firing and forcing out anyone who might not share his political views, even though these jobs are career, nonpartisan, and apolitical jobs.

Next, he went after lawyers and law firms who tried to hold him accountable to the law. He continues to do so. He has signed several executive orders, trying to limit the ability of law firms to represent their clients, one of the fundamental hallmarks of our system of law.

He has gone after universities. These institutions form the bedrock foundation of the growth and innovation of our great country and underpin and form the foundation for the best global economy in the world. He is now threatening to withhold billions of dollars in Federal funding unless universities change their curriculum, change their admissions process, change their hiring process, and change other core parts of their mission that they, as educational institutions, decide in this democracy.

He is also waging a war against nonprofit organizations, yanking grants away that have already been made and allocated. He is threatening to remove the tax-exempt status of any organization that may disagree with his opinions or support lawsuits that might actually enforce existing laws.

Mr. Speaker, you see where this is going. The media, the FBI, inspectors general, the Department of Justice, law firms, universities, and nonprofit organizations are all institutions that enforce our laws and that hold those in power accountable. This is his methodical way of undermining all forms of accountability in this government.

More recently, his attack on our Constitution has escalated. Before he even came into office in January, President Trump had completely submitted the Republican Conference of this body. They have abdicated their constitutional duty to be a check and balance on the executive branch.

The judiciary, the third branch of government, still remains in his way. How does he deal with the judiciary? He is openly and brazenly criticizing and attacking judicial rulings that he doesn't like--including a number issued by Republican-appointed judges, including his own--and is openly defying court orders including Supreme Court orders.

The President and some of my Republican colleagues are threatening judges. They are trying to bully them into ruling in their favor and not ruling based on their interpretation of the law.

With the career folks removed from our executive branch agencies, he has put political lackeys in charge of our criminal justice system and our national security apparatus. He is ordering criminal investigations into individuals simply because they disagree with him.

That is the type of corruption that our country travels the world to root out. At its core, it is as antidemocratic as it gets. It is the stuff of dictators and strongmen and not of democracies.

Even worse, he is attacking our basic and fundamental right of due process. That is the right to have any allegation presented before a neutral arbiter who makes a final decision.

Like a king, Donald Trump thinks it is okay for him to get to decide what the law is. That is not how our system works. The Supreme Court and our judiciary decide what the law is. When a unanimous Supreme Court rules that he is not a king and that he must abide by our basic principles of due process, he then refuses.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador, even though he had an order on him that would prohibit him from going to El Salvador. Donald Trump admits the mistake and refuses to bring him back to face due process.

Due process is the cornerstone of our country. It distinguishes us from an authoritarian dictatorship, and Donald Trump wants to destroy it. It is not optional, and court rulings are not simply suggestions. They are the backbone of American democracy. They are our final safeguard against the unchecked power of the executive.

When a President ignores the courts, he is not challenging policy. He is declaring war on the Constitution itself. Despite this laundry list of attacks on trying to undermine our democracy and our rule of law, my Republican colleagues remain absolutely silent and, in some cases, even supportive.

These alarm bells are deafening, but too many in this Chamber would rather enable Donald Trump's descent into dictatorship than to confront him. They have laid down the power of the purse, and now they are actively trying to forfeit their oversight authority.

They are silent as President Trump wages an all-out assault on our constitutional democracy. They are silent as he goes after the media, launches investigations into his political adversaries, and attacks our basic fundamental rights.

This is what dictators like Vladimir Putin do. They use repression, retaliation, and the threat of violence to consolidate their own power, while doling out billions of dollars to other oligarchs who will support them.

Many countries have faced moments like this before, moments where the freedom and the openness of the democracy that they represent stand at a crossroads. I urge my Republican colleagues to please stand up for our Constitution. Stand up for our democracy. None of us want authoritarianism. We don't want a dictator.

Mr. Speaker, now is the time where the rubber meets the road, and my friends across the aisle will make their record for history.

Do they want a dictator or do they want a democracy?

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his very prescient comments. He spoke of a reign of terror that has been inflicted upon our institutions and the people of this country.

As a lawyer, I never thought that I would ever live to see the Department of Justice being perverted to the point of turning its attention on prosecuting a State court judge for interfering with a deportation in her courtroom and in her courthouse. Even judges and courthouses in this Nation are not safe from the reign of terror of this President.

In Milwaukee, Judge Dugan, a State court judge, was arrested by the FBI for obstructing justice by allegedly directing a migrant out of her courtroom through a side door, as Federal agents waited to arrest him in the hallway. He was there for a hearing on charges unrelated to his immigration status.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, did not even have a judicial warrant to arrest him. A judicial warrant is based on probable cause, is signed by a judge, and has the force of law. What the ICE agent had was only an administrative warrant. This type of warrant is just simply a piece of paper that somebody types up, saying that this person should be arrested. There is no probable cause, no nothing. It is just an administrative warrant.

The judge told the ICE agents that if they wanted to arrest someone in her courtroom, they needed a judicial warrant signed by a judge. They needed to speak with the chief judge of Milwaukee County. The chief judge told the agents that they could not make arrests inside courtrooms or other private locations in the courthouse.

That makes a lot of sense. If people know they will be picked up by ICE if they report to the courthouse, they will never show up for their State court proceedings. Mr. Speaker, it is impugning the ability of the courts of the States to administer justice according to State law.

Judge Dugan allegedly ushered the migrant out a side door. A week later, FBI agents show up at her courthouse. When she pulls up to the parking lot, they take her out of the car and put her in handcuffs. They perp walked her in a public manner that was meant to send a message to any other judge who stood up for the rule of law.

This was clearly designed to make not just State court judges but all judges, including Federal judges, afraid of taking a position out of step with the Trump administration. It is meant to stop judges from doing their jobs and standing up for the communities they are empowered by and against the illegal abuses of the Trump administration.

This is even before the talk Trump has stirred up about impeaching Federal judges who have the temerity to rule against his administration when it violates the laws and the Constitution. Once again, Trump and his cronies are trying to bully and remove people who have the backbone to do their jobs and stand up for our democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I am now joined by my colleague from the great State of Georgia, Representative Lucy McBath.

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia.

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her passion, for her courage, and for her tenacity in representing the interests of those who have been adversely impacted by crime and who need the justice system to hold accountable those who would violate our laws. She stands for justice for all. I appreciate her comments.

It is not just big law firms and judges who are being targeted but also Department of Justice officials, FBI officials, government employees, and whistleblowers. The Department of Justice is now going after none other than ActBlue. What is ActBlue?

Trump has asked the Department of Justice to cut off funding to anyone who opposes him, and recently, he directed the Department of Justice, the DOJ, to target ActBlue.

What is ActBlue? It is a Democratic fundraising site that collects small-dollar donations from people across the country who fuel the Democratic Party's fundraising. ActBlue is a vehicle for everyday Americans to make small-dollar donations to the campaigns of people who are standing up to Donald Trump and fighting back against this administration. As a result of that, Donald Trump and his department of so-called justice are trying to shut them down.

There is zero evidence of any wrongdoing by ActBlue, unlike this President's own shady crypto businesses and his taking of unconstitutional emoluments during his first term, but because ActBlue provides a way or mechanism for small donors to fund those who oppose Trump, Trump is using his power over the Department of Justice to shut down ActBlue like the authoritarian dictator that he is trying to be.

Under rulings by the Supreme Court, it is big dark money donors who now dominate elections, and they donate heavily in favor of Republicans. Instead of putting some restrictions on those dark money donors, he wants to make them the only ones who are in place to be able to fund elections of Representatives.

In other words, he is persecuting and prosecuting, trying to prosecute a small-dollar donor network for the Democrats so that only the big dark money donors who participate in electing him and his MAGA cronies are the ones who are playing the game.

We cannot allow that to stand. Trump is actually going full MAGA out here with this, and his purpose is to Make America Great Again again. He wants to turn the country back to a time when the only people who had the right to vote were the White male property owners.

In line with that, he is trying to destroy the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. Under Trump, Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice are degrading the ability of civil rights lawyers to do their jobs on behalf of the American people. The Department of Justice has a storied Civil Rights Division, which was established by the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which focused on fighting racial discrimination. The division has since been tasked with upholding the rights of all persons in the United States, particularly the most vulnerable.

When Trump took office, there were almost 400 attorneys in the division. Based on unofficial estimates, approximately 70 percent of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division is expected to accept the second resignation offer, leaving fewer than 150 attorneys, as Trump has twisted the division into something unrecognizable, a unit that is bent on dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, reversing policies on transgender rights, rooting out so- called woke ideology, and other such nefarious goals.

Vanita Gupta, a former associate attorney general under President Biden, has said that the division has been turned on its head and that now it is being used as a weapon against the very communities it was established to protect.

Cases have been halted, and top managers from the voting rights section have been reassigned.

As devastating as this is now, it also means that that knowledge is being lost. If we have an election in 2028, which is not guaranteed with this President who is already selling merchandise proclaiming Trump 2028, but if we do have an election in 2028 and get a new President, we cannot snap our fingers instantly and rebuild an entire division that was demolished by this administration.

Major damage is being done to our institutions, and all my brothers and sisters can do on the other side of the aisle is cower in favor of what they know is wrong and unjust.

This is abuse of authority, and we cannot let it go unchecked. As much as Trump and his Department of Justice try to silence us, we must all speak up and speak out. Democracy is a fragile and precious thing. It lasts as long as we fight for it. That is because each time we let ourselves be cowed and each time we yield to fear, our rights narrow.

I have before me the Preamble of the Constitution. It says, ``We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice''--it is right up there at the top. This is why we wanted to ``form a more perfect Union.'' It was to ``establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare.''

It was to establish justice. That premised everything else. Justice and the system of justice in this country are worth protecting, and we shall do so. We shall continue to do so.

I promise that I will be in the trenches fighting with you, We the People.

As John Lewis used to say, let's go make some good trouble.

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