Do the prominent lawyers representing President Donald Trump, his family and his administration many of them Jewish have a duty to speak out in the wake of his comments about the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia?
The president called racism evil and singled out the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups in prepared remarks on Monday. But he earned widespread condemnation a day later when he placed blame on both sides and the alt-left for the clashes that left a 32-year-old counter-protester dead on Saturday.
Administration lawyers are not obligated by professional conduct rules to speak up, acknowledged Stephen Gillers, a professor of law at New York University Law School and well-recognized ethics expert. But, he added in an email: I believe that decency and respect for the rule of law morally requires them to denounce the president s hateful rhetoric, insensitivity to the norms of civil society, historical ignorance, and failure forcefully to repudiate the anti-Semitic and racist slurs of the demonstrators.
Gillers continued: They should stress that the president s views will not affect how they perform their official duties. Good men and women, and especially lawyers, must not let such statements pass unremarked, and especially not when they come from the U.S. president.
Related Articles:
One of Trump s longtime personal lawyers, Michael Cohen, who is Jewish, defended the president to a New York Times reporter on Wednesday, calling him a good man who doesn t have a racist bone in his body. On Twitter, Cohen earlier wrote that he was the son of a Holocaust survivor, adding, Just because I support @POTUS @realDonaldTrump doesn't make me a racist.
Other Jews among the lawyers associated with Trump s administration remained publicly silent and did not respond to requests for comment for this story. They include: Marc Kasowitz, who is defending the president in an investigation into his Russia ties; David Friedman, Kasowitz s former law partner who serves as U.S. ambassador to Israel; and Jason Greenblatt, who serves as the president s special envoy to the Middle East.
Amos Guiora, a law professor at the University of Utah s S.J. Quinney College of Law, recently wrote about legal obligations to speak out and prevent violent acts in his book The Crimes of Complicity The Bystander in the Holocaust, published this summer by the American Bar Association.