IBA 2025: Trump using justice department as his own plaything, says top defence lawyer

One of the US’s leading defence lawyers has accused President Trump of turning the administration into his own personal law firm through constant attacks on political opponents.

Addressing the International Bar Association's annual conference in Toronto, veteran lawyer Nancy Hollander said the US Department of Justice had become the ‘department of retaliation’ under Trump.

Hollander, who is best known for representing two Guantanamo Bay detainees and the activist Chelsea Manning, said she feared losing her own accreditation to enter government-run sites such as the military prison under the current administration. ‘We have a terrible situation that I never thought I would see in the US,’ said Hollander. ‘There have always been issues but now we have an authoritarian, fascist dictatorship and there is no getting around that anymore.’

Hollander highlighted the cases of several of Trump’s political and legal opponents who have been indicted or investigated, including the New York attorney general Letitia James and former special counsel for the US Department of Justice Jack Smith.

‘This is only the beginning. [Those investigated] are all likely to be found not guilty but by then their careers will have been ruined,' she said.  ‘Any lawyer who speaks the truth [about the Trump administration] in front of a judge gets fired. Dozens or prosecutors have either been fired or forced to resign.’

Hollander also addressed the issue of law firms making deals with the government to provide pro bono legal advice in return for having sanctions against them lifted.

‘We can’t have anything that might hurt Trump – that is the reality,’ added Hollander, who was the subject of the 2021 film The Mauritanian. ‘Nine law firms folded immediately [after being threatened by the president] and caved in. Their bottom line and partners making $5m a year needed to be able to continue. It has come back to bite them and frankly they deserve it.’

The IBA annual conference this year has often focused on the erosion of the rule of law in various countries including the US.

Giving the keynote speech at the opening ceremony on Sunday, Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella, a former judge at the Supreme Court of Canada, said she saw worrying parallels between the current indifference to the rule of law and the attitude of lawyers in Nazi Germany.

Abella, whose parents survived the Holocaust and came to Canada as refugees, said: ‘In too many parts of the world, there are no regrets, no tolerance, no justice and no hope, and those parts of the world are putting the rest of the world in danger.’