Senator Schmitt Sends Letter to American Bar Association For its Failure to Uphold the Rule of Law

WASHINGTON – Today, Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) led a letter alongside Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Bernie Moreno (R-OH) to the American Bar Association (ABA) expressing disappointment for their recent statements on the “rule of law” and “the legal profession.”

The letter states, “We write to express our disappointment with your recent statements on ‘the rule of law’ and ‘the legal profession.’ Both lead us to conclude the American Bar Association (ABA) is a biased and ideologically captured institution. We call on our Senate colleagues to disregard the ABA’s recommendations, as well as ratings of judicial nominees and pending legislation. We also call upon President Trump and the Department of Justice to remove the ABA from the judicial nomination process entirely.”

The letter continues, “The ABA claims it ‘stands committed to its mission of defending liberty and pursuing justice.’ It does so by explicitly decrying the dismantling of USAID, though it provides no legal argument as to why such dismantling is illegal. The ABA further fails to disclose that the ABA has received millions of dollars in funding from USAID. It is questionable whether the ABA is committed to defending liberty or its own sources of funding.”

The letter concludes, “Unfortunately, the ABA has shown itself to be an ideologically captured, leftist institution, as many warned in the first Trump Administration. It is a failed institution that is incapable of impartially rating nominees and making legislative recommendations. As such, we will not consider any ABA recommendations on pending legislation or nominees, and we call upon our colleagues to do the same.”

Background

• The American Bar Association (ABA), once a “neutral” national advocate for the legal profession, has traditionally held sizable influence in setting national legal policy and credentialing the federal judiciary.
• In recent years, the ABA has a developed a track record of taking partisan and progressive positions on a range of issues, including abortion and the Second Amendment.
• The ABA excused President Biden’s executive order on the Equal Rights Amendment, at the time urging “all bar associations and the legal community as a whole to support implementation of the ERA.”
• The ABA previously asserted that bar associations have a First Amendment right to engage in racial discrimination, having denounced President Trump’s earlier executive order aimed at eliminating DEI initiatives:
  • “In his executive order, Trump declared that “influential institutions of American society” are using “dangerous, demeaning and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ (DEI) or ‘diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility’ (DEIA) that can violate the civil rights laws of this nation.”
• The ABA filed a successful lawsuit, challenging the Trump administration’s executive actions on eliminating funding for USAID, which funded some of the ABA’s activities.
• The ABA’s influence in setting national legal policy and credentialing the federal judiciary, while waning, is still very real. 

The full letter can be found here.

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