Letter to the editor: Threats to democracy

When did we get to the point when a lawyer was denied his constitutional right to defend a client? The last time I read or heard anything like this was in the days of the Jim Crow South, where it was impossible for a Black man to defend himself.

Philadelphia lawyer Linda Kerns, who had represented the Trump campaign, asked to be withdrawn as counsel after receiving abusive emails, threatening phone calls, physical threats and accusations of treason. Kerns was then placed under “official protection.”

Kerns had sought sanctions against a lawyer with the firm Kirkland & Ellis in D.C., who admitted he left her a voice mail message that she said “falls afoul of the standards of professional conduct.”

Constitutional scholar and law professor Jonathan Turley addressed a campaign to harass Trump’s lawyers: “Groups like the Lincoln Project targeted law firms and launched a campaign to force lawyers to abandon Trump as a client.”

The Lincoln Project targeted law firms like Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, threatening its lawyers with professional ruin by claiming that any firm working for Trump was part of a dangerous attack on our democracy.

Turley noted, “Trying to strip people of their counsel, of course, is the real threat to our democracy.”

Ed Liberatore

Turtle Creek