{"id":118857,"date":"2025-05-13T07:02:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T15:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/13\/doj-says-susman-godfrey-is-national-security-threat-for-giving-money-to-glad\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T07:02:29","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T15:02:29","slug":"doj-says-susman-godfrey-is-national-security-threat-for-giving-money-to-glad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/13\/doj-says-susman-godfrey-is-national-security-threat-for-giving-money-to-glad\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Says Susman Godfrey Is National Security Threat\u2026 For Giving Money To GLAD"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a new \u201cAxis of Evil\u201d in the Trump administration cosmology and it\u2019s not al Qaeda or North Korea. Instead, the preeminent threat to national security, according to the hapless folks at Donald Trump\u2019s personal law firm<\/a>, is anyone who ever donated money to LGBTQ civil rights organization GLAD<\/a><\/em>. At least that\u2019s the government\u2019s new working theory as it tries to justify its retaliatory executive order against Susman Godfrey<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Had Susman, for example, taken on that GLAD challenge pro bono<\/em>, the allegation would still be risible, but when the whole argument hinges on the firm generally donating to a prominent non-profit it crosses into professionally embarrassing. <\/p>\n

Not quite, \u201cmaking up fake Supreme Court quotes<\/a>\u201d embarrassing, but still.<\/p>\n

Aside from trying to tag Susman for its charitable contributions, it\u2019s also deeply troubling to suggest that filing a federal lawsuit is a \u201cdangerous effort to undermine the effectiveness of the United States military.\u201d In a rule of law society (I know, I know, but humor me on this idea for the moment), \u201cgoing to court\u201d isn\u2019t sedition, but the system working as intended. Checks and balances and all that stuff. To call a federal lawsuit an effort to undermine the government, requires adopting the premise that it\u2019s a threat to make sure the government isn\u2019t doing anything illegal. Courts can get the law wrong, but the point is that we encourage people to take grievances to court and not storm federal buildings\u2026 you know, the behavior that we traditionally considered a \u201cdangerous effort to undermine\u201d the government. Not so much these days<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no bright line between the GLAD challenge and any other discrimination case brought against the DOD. If the government chooses to contest a suit for any reason, under this standard, it\u2019s an effort to undermine the effectiveness of the military. Frankly, there\u2019s not much keeping the DOJ from expanding this rationale to any other case brought against the government. That would put us a little beyond warnings about a slippery slope and into \u201cthat point where Wile E. Coyote hasn\u2019t noticed he\u2019s off the cliff yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that GLAD\u2019s challenge would\u2019ve dangerously undermined effectiveness. General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated unequivocally that there is no problem with transgender troops if they meet standards<\/a>. But as a career soldier, Milley cared more about merit and the ability to do the job. A civilian talk show host more interested in texting war plans to his buddies might have\u2026 different priorities. <\/p>\n

Though all of this remains far afield of the instant issue: Susman Godfrey, giving money to an organization that has in the past filed a civil rights challenge, is not even in the same universe as a threat to national security.<\/p>\n

But you miss 100 percent of the shots you don\u2019t take, I guess.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post DOJ Says Susman Godfrey Is National Security Threat\u2026 For Giving Money To GLAD<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a new \u201cAxis of Evil\u201d in the Trump administration cosmology and it\u2019s not al Qaeda or North Korea. Instead, the preeminent threat to national security, according to the hapless folks at Donald Trump\u2019s personal law firm<\/a>, is anyone who ever donated money to LGBTQ civil rights organization GLAD<\/a><\/em>. At least that\u2019s the government\u2019s new working theory as it tries to justify its retaliatory executive order against Susman Godfrey<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Had Susman, for example, taken on that GLAD challenge pro bono<\/em>, the allegation would still be risible, but when the whole argument hinges on the firm generally donating to a prominent non-profit it crosses into professionally embarrassing. <\/p>\n

Not quite, \u201cmaking up fake Supreme Court quotes<\/a>\u201d embarrassing, but still.<\/p>\n

Aside from trying to tag Susman for its charitable contributions, it\u2019s also deeply troubling to suggest that filing a federal lawsuit is a \u201cdangerous effort to undermine the effectiveness of the United States military.\u201d In a rule of law society (I know, I know, but humor me on this idea for the moment), \u201cgoing to court\u201d isn\u2019t sedition, but the system working as intended. Checks and balances and all that stuff. To call a federal lawsuit an effort to undermine the government, requires adopting the premise that it\u2019s a threat to make sure the government isn\u2019t doing anything illegal. Courts can get the law wrong, but the point is that we encourage people to take grievances to court and not storm federal buildings\u2026 you know, the behavior that we traditionally considered a \u201cdangerous effort to undermine\u201d the government. Not so much these days<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no bright line between the GLAD challenge and any other discrimination case brought against the DOD. If the government chooses to contest a suit for any reason, under this standard, it\u2019s an effort to undermine the effectiveness of the military. Frankly, there\u2019s not much keeping the DOJ from expanding this rationale to any other case brought against the government. That would put us a little beyond warnings about a slippery slope and into \u201cthat point where Wile E. Coyote hasn\u2019t noticed he\u2019s off the cliff yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that GLAD\u2019s challenge would\u2019ve dangerously undermined effectiveness. General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated unequivocally that there is no problem with transgender troops if they meet standards<\/a>. But as a career soldier, Milley cared more about merit and the ability to do the job. A civilian talk show host more interested in texting war plans to his buddies might have\u2026 different priorities. <\/p>\n

Though all of this remains far afield of the instant issue: Susman Godfrey, giving money to an organization that has in the past filed a civil rights challenge, is not even in the same universe as a threat to national security.<\/p>\n

But you miss 100 percent of the shots you don\u2019t take, I guess.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a new \u201cAxis of Evil\u201d in the Trump administration cosmology and it\u2019s not al Qaeda or North Korea. Instead, the preeminent threat to national security, according to the hapless folks at Donald Trump\u2019s personal law firm, is anyone who ever donated money to LGBTQ civil rights organization GLAD. At least that\u2019s the government\u2019s new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":118839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Headshot-300x200-S1KoOp.jpeg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}