Defend all the lawyers

Yulia Navalnaya’s January 16, 2026 essay in The Washington Post, “Dictators are coming for the lawyers,” is a very timely piece worthy of the deepest considerations by those who value personal liberty, equal protection, and the right of self-government.

Navalnaya’s essay recalls a line from act IV, scene II of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II, which goes: “The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.” This line is uttered by Jack Cade, a book burner, as he plans a coup. Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens interprets this line to mean “that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.”

Navalnaya did not name President Trump in her essay as one of the dictators targeting lawyers, but Mr. Trump has taken steps in that direction. In March 2025, President Trump issued a flurry of executive orders targeting specific lawyers and law firms solely because they worked on cases that went against his politics. So far courts have not been favorable to these attacks, but Congress needs to step up and check the Trump Administration’s attempt to silence lawyers simply because their work upsets the President personally.

If we want to protect the Constitution, the first thing we need to do is defend all the lawyers.