SEATTLE — You may not have heard it yet, but America’s legal community recently let out a roar here in the Emerald City, a collective call from retired federal judges and a bipartisan array of academics and legal organizations: The rule of law matters, and it will be protected.

The two-day symposium, “Neither Sword Nor Purse,” held at the University of Washington School of Law, was necessary because of one person: President Donald J. Trump. His threats against the judiciary and the ease with which he and his administration ignore or boastfully refuse to follow the law are without precedent. He is, quite simply, a threat to judicial independence, and he shows no hesitation to jackhammer the very foundation of our democracy.

J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge and an icon in the conservative legal world, spoke first and pulled no punches, tracing Trump’s disrespect for the law back to the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol:

“On Jan. 6, 2021, it was a dark day in American history. On that day, the 45th president of the United States instigated a war on America's democracy, and forced upon this nation an unpeaceful transfer of power for the first time in almost 250 years. From that day until this day, he has persisted in the prosecution of that war, determined to prosecute that war to its catastrophic end, to this day presenting himself to America and to the world as a clear and present danger to American democracy.”

Trump is waging war on the rule of law

Luttig continued: “Four years later, on his first day back in the White House, the same man, now the 47th president of the United States and a........

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