The head of the New York State Bar Association, or NYSBA, has criticized a Trump-administration Justice Department official.

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Please read the criticism for yourself:

NYSBA “denounces Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s declaration of ‘war’ on the judiciary and bar(-)association disciplinary bodies.

“At a recent conference of the Federalist Society, (General) Blanche characterized the Department of Justice’s resistance to ethical oversight of its lawyers by courts and bar associations as ‘war.'”

NYSBA “will always stand up for the rule of law and for the judiciary. We stand with our fellow bar associations, including the D.C. Bar.

“Any lawyer(s) who abandon() their oath to the constitution and who intentionally misrepresent() facts or law in court (are) properly subject to discipline, even if they work for the Department of Justice.

“The judiciary is a coequal branch of our government. It is not an inferior entity to be treated with disdain as an irksome impediment to the will of the executive branch.”

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Well.

Please consider this: At least standing alone, which is how NYSBA presents it, does that sound like a threat?

Beyond that, let’s review the video of General Blanche, who did an interview during the Federalist Society’s national-lawyers’ convention on Nov. 7, 2025.

No one need set foot in a law school, much less be a lawyer, to see he neither issued a declaration of war nor referred to interaction with bars, much less bar associations, much less bar-association-disciplinary bodies, as war. So what did he say?

He answered the interviewer’s question about “hostile district courts” by recalling “multiple times when a local district judge” entered a decision that was either stayed or reversed on appeal but then didn’t follow the appellate court.

“Do() the media say that the judges are defiant or that the Department of Justice and President Trump (are)? It’s always (we). …

“These activist judges … are … as political as the most liberal governor or DA. … They … have to follow … the Constitution. And … we have seen judges just defy that. … There’s a group of judges that are repeat players and that’s obviously not by happenstance. That’s intentional. And it’s a war, man. … It’s happening over and over and over again, … and the system is not set up for efficiency when it comes to rogue activist judges. So we lose days, we lose weeks, months sometimes because of this. And that’s why activist groups do what they do … , but at the end of the day, we are not wrong. … It’s evidenced by the results we’re seeing at the Supreme Court and at the courts of appeal(). …

“What a travesty it is when you have an individual judge … able to stop an entire operation or an entire administrative policy … . So it’s a war.”

Responding to the next question, he said “the D.C. bar in particular is one of the most activist, obnoxious bars when it comes to going after conservative lawyers. It is out of this world what they do. … There’s a liberal side that doesn’t like what we’re doing, and they don’t like the success that we’re having, the changes that we’re making, and the good things that are happening. And so, they’re doing everything they can to stop us. And that’s one thing they’re doing.”

The full interview is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvsL-f7W4Xg.

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Nationwide- and statewide-bar associations tend to make no secret of their political views. In general, they’re not the Trump administration’s.

Never mind the extent to which

• your political views align with NYSBA’s or the Trump administration’s, or

• you agree or disagree here with the NYSBA head or the deputy attorney general.

To put it politely by understating the point, the NYSBA head didn’t convey the deputy attorney general’s assertions with pinpoint precision.

This isn’t surprising when any administration’s political opponents criticize it.

To the extent that particular opponents err in this way, the rest of us are well within our rights to indulge appropriate skepticism of them.

As the saying goes, this ain’t rocket science.

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Which brings us to this: Where does this leave other bar associations when, as happens, NYSBA requests they adopt particular resolutions and forward those resolutions to NYSBA?

Hmmmm.

Other bar associations would do well to ask themselves why NYSBA would want such resolutions when

• it can use them to bolster its opposition to its political opponents, or

• NYSBA frames–perhaps misframes is a better word–political opposition as “ethical oversight.”

Other bar associations would do well to reject such requests. They shouldn’t risk involving themselves, even indirectly, in such political opposition, especially–but not only–out of respect to the diverse political views among their own members.

This ain’t rocket science either.

Alternatively, in preparing resolutions they adopt, other bar associations–out of such respect–should write their resolutions in ways that sufficiently deter NYSBA’s using them for such opposition.

Either way, other bar associations should avoid NYSBA’s approach in criticizing General Blanche.

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Dr. Randy Elf urges that lawyers, regardless of their political views, refrain from belonging to nationwide- or statewide-bar associations that aren’t, shall we say, politically even handed.

COPYRIGHT © 2026 BY RANDY ELF