The writer is professor of law and economics at Harvard Law School
American business is under attack. Headlines focus on the immediate pain of tariffs, but over the past few weeks, President Donald Trump has launched another assault on a foundation of capitalism: the rule of law. If allowed to go unchecked, and if corporate leaders continue to stand by in silence, Trump’s efforts will scar business long past the next presidential election.
Trump stripped the attorney-general of the shreds of independence left from his first term, with political appointees intervening in prosecutions and firing government lawyers for answering judges’ questions honestly. Then the Department of Justice started investigating dozens of law firms for unspecified crimes. Without notice or court review, the president has personally signed orders taking away rights from half a dozen major law firms that worked in the past for his political rivals. He has directed all government dealings to be ended for any company that relies on those law firms — a type of secondary boycott that in ordinary times would itself be seen as improperly dragging business into the political arena.