‘That lawyer is me’: Why Trump’s threats won’t stop me
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On Saturday, President Donald Trump said Sen. Chuck Schumer and the lawyer who regularly defeats his voter suppression and election subversion schemes should be “held criminally responsible” over Alaska’s U.S. Senate race.
That lawyer is me.
The cause of his latest ire is the fact that his party is poised to lose control of Congress.
Acting at his direction, the Justice Department has been intimidating election officials and threatening voters. It has sued to obtain state voter rolls and to block states from counting ballots.
In Alaska, Trump ordered the department to sue to block certification of the Senate race if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola. It was a frivolous case, and on Sunday, a federal judge in Alaska threw it out.
But Trump is not deterred. As always, he is escalating his attacks by insisting that the department abuse its criminal investigative powers to do his political bidding.
After the DOJ lost today’s case, he took to social media to attack me again by name. He included me in a short list of people who he considers “CRIMINALS who totally abuse the Laws of our Land, and are destructive to our Country at levels never thought possible before.”
On Friday, the U.S. attorney for Alaska held a press conference in Anchorage loudly announcing a vast criminal investigation while conceding, “I’m not making any assumptions on whether a crime has been committed or not.”
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From Trump’s vantage point, this was likely not enough. And with his power slipping away, he is becoming more desperate. So, I expect his attacks on me and others who are standing up to him will increase.
He will try to pressure us to back away from protecting voting rights. He will try to force us to stay silent.
Trump’s many attacks on me are well known.
In 2018, he called me the Democratic Party’s “best Election stealing lawyer.” Two years later, I helped lead the effort to defeat his attempts to overturn the 2020 election in more than 60 court cases, election contests and recounts.
In 2024, he posted an article titled “Marc Elias Is Scared … And He Should Be” and twice posted that, if elected, he intended to investigate and prosecute “Lawyers” he saw as helping political opponents.
He has followed through. In a March 2025 speech at the Justice Department, he called me and another lawyer “radicals” trying to turn America into a “corrupt, communist, third-world country.”
About a week later, he issued a presidential memorandum targeting me and my law firm by name. By then, he had already tried to sanction my prior law firm, citing work I did there in 2016.
Earlier this year, as my firm was defeating the department in dozens of cases around the country, he called me “a terrible lawyer with a horrible track record.”
I could go on. I could list the times his allies have attacked me with lies, the civil lawsuit he filed against me that was dismissed, and his weaponization of government, including the criminal investigation by special counsel John Durham launched during his first term.
But the point is simple. As he posted in 2024, he wants me to be scared. He wants all of us to be afraid to stand up to him.
He wants us to stop speaking out. He wants us to believe that he is so powerful that there is simply no point in fighting back.
To be honest, in too many places, his strategy of fear and intimidation has worked.
Large law firms have sat idly by as Trump and his cronies violate the Constitution and make a mockery of the rule of law. Too afraid to offend Trump, they sit in their fancy offices while small law firms like mine litigate scores of cases.
Large media outlets are in full both-sides mode, with occasional obsessions reminiscent of the “but her emails” craze of 2016. They, too, are hoping to keep their access to the White House and avoid unduly offending its current occupant.
Business leaders are not just silent but complicit. They shower Trump with false praise, lavish gifts and business opportunities for his family.
With the Justice Department losing in court nearly every day, I expect further escalations from Trump and his allies.
Trump wants his Justice Department to be more brazen not only in its words but in its actions. Indeed, he complained to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi — in a now-famous September 2025 Truth Social post — that people saw her department as “all talk, no action” and that “nothing is being done.”
Election Day is Tuesday, but the fight against Trump’s attacks on democracy will continue. Trump can try to intimidate me. He can try to scare. But I have never backed down before — and I will not start now.