By Deb Bucknam
On April 3, 2025, a group of 200 Vermont lawyers signed a “Statement in Support of the Rule of Law”. The Statement outlined the signatories’ list of claims demonstrating that President Trump has repeatedly subverted the rule of law.
The Statement is not a lawyerly support of the rule of law; it is a political manifesto.
Yuval Levin, in his new book, “American Covenant”, noted that from the beginning, Americans have had a well-deserved reputation for being “lawyerly”. Levin defines lawyerly as “disputatious, contrarian, and exacting”. This manifesto contains none of those qualities.
The Statement is not disputatious. Its outline of President Trump’s many sins brooks no dissent. It proclaims the President has traitorously violated of his oath of office, and anyone attempting to debate the premises of the manifesto runs the risk of similar moral condemnation.
The Statement is not contrarian. It echoes the catechism the Establishment has repeated about President Trump for years. He is authoritarian. He breaks the law. He is dangerous.
The Statement is not exacting. It contains imprecise verbiage, hyperbole, misleading statements, and even fabrications.
Many of the claims the Statement lists as violations of the rule of law are perfectly legal, such as using constitutional pardon power, deciding which law firms the Administration wants to employ, “proclaiming” that a judge should be impeached, as Democrat leaders proclaimed last year concerning two Supreme Court Justices, changing language on its websites and official documents (the Statement misleadingly claims the Administration “outlawed” such language).
Other actions the Statement claims are “illegal”—where lower court judges have ruled against the Administration– have been overturned by the United States Supreme Court, the Supreme Court essentially finding the lower courts—not the Administration–exceeded their authority. Here are examples in the Statement:
• “Defied orders of federal judges”. Only one judge, Judge Boasberg, ruled the Administration violated his order, but Boasberg’s decision was rebuked by the Supreme Court, who found the Judge had no jurisdiction to rule on the claims. Now Judge Boasberg’s new attempt to find the administration in contempt is an example of judicial overreach about which these lawyers are silent.
• “Illegally impounded funds at federal agencies”. The Supreme Court recently overturned a lower court holding that funds withheld by the Education Department must be reinstated, finding that the lower court had no jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ claims.
• “Illegally fired thousands of federal employees”. The Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s ruling ordering reinstatement of thousands of probationary employees, finding the plaintiffs had no standing.
Additional listed items in the Statements are either misleading or fabrications:
• “[The Trump administration] has arrested, detained and deported individuals without due process of law.” “Due process of law” misleadingly implies that the full panoply of legal rights is required for “individuals” being deported. As every lawyer knows, sufficient due process is different depending on the circumstances. President Obama deported 5.3 million illegals during his eight years in office. In 2013, when Obama deported nearly 440,000 people, 83% of those deportees were deported by expedited removal processes. No one claimed President Obama violated due process.
• “Threatening Americans’ Social Security benefits.” This an outright fabrication. The United States has a 37 trillion-dollar federal debt. If our enormous debt is not addressed, social security benefits will have to be reduced or eliminated. The Trump administration is trying to save social security by rooting out fraud and abuse, and by downsizing government, not “threatening” social security benefits.
• “Has used the IRS to gain access to millions of Americans’ personal financial information.” This is another fabrication. This apparently concerns a claim that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) gained access to personal financial information. DOGE did not. The United States Treasury has not allowed DOGE to access personal information, and two months ago Treasury assured a DC court that it would not allow such access.
Finally, the Statement fails as a political document. Its hyperbole, lack of supporting evidence, and its smugness are not politically persuasive. It is only effective as self-indulgence. The signatories congratulate themselves as better than the ignorant masses who voted for President Trump. This does nothing to foster compromise or even discussion. It only reinforces the divide between political factions in this country.
In 1787, in a period of heightened controversy and national peril, our forebears met at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, facing an existential threat to the new Republic. Out of the 55 delegates to the Convention, 35 were lawyers. In that group, there were personal hatreds and suspicions, and profound political differences. Yet the delegates were able to reach agreement and compromise to create a timeless document that we still live under nearly 240 years later. How did they do it? George Washington gave the answer: “The Constitution is the result of a spirit of amity and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.”
The attorneys who signed this Statement have much to offer our political discourse. I know and respect many of them. President Trump’s policies opposing anti-Semitism and government waste and corruption; supporting Free Speech, school choice, secure borders, and tariffs were all once championed by political allies of the signatories here. Surely there is common ground on which we can debate, discuss and compromise. It takes courage and integrity to set aside personal differences for the good of the country. The Constitutional Convention lawyers were able to do so. It is time for Vermont lawyers to follow their lead. Let us return to “amity” and “mutual deference”. It is as indispensable today as it was in 1787.
The author has been practicing law in Vermont since graduating from Vermont Law School, cum laude, in 1979. She is a member of the Vermont Bar Association, the New Hampshire Bar Association, and the Federalist Society. She is a member of the Board of the Thaddeus Stevens School. She has been a GOP candidate for Vermont Attorney General.