Bipartisan Legal Group Urges Lawyers to Defend Against ‘Rising Authoritarianism’

An American Bar Association task force of prominent legal thinkers gestures at former President Trump without naming him.

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J. Michael Luttig is leading a panel of prominent legal thinkers and other public figures who are calling on lawyers across the country to do more to help protect democracy in the United States.

A bipartisan American Bar Association task force is calling on lawyers across the country to do more to help protect democracy ahead of the 2024 election, warning in a statement to be delivered Friday at the group’s annual meeting in Chicago that the nation faces a serious threat in “rising authoritarianism.”

The statement by a panel of prominent legal thinkers and other public figures — led by J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former federal appeals court judge appointed by President George Bush, and Jeh C. Johnson, a Homeland Security secretary during the Obama administration — does not mention by name former President Donald J. Trump.

But in raising alarms, the panel appeared to be clearly referencing Mr. Trump’s attempt to subvert his loss of the 2020 election, which included attacks on election workers who were falsely accused by Mr. Trump and his supporters of rigging votes and culminated in the violent attack on the Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.

“For the first time in our history, we did not have a peaceful transition of power in our last presidential election,” says the lengthy statement, an advance copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

Mr. Trump told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in May that he would not commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election.

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