White House attack on lawyers 'shows nowhere is immune'

The Trump administration’s crackdown on lawyers it does not like is something people thought “could never happen in the United States”, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA) has said.

- Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent

In an interview with the Guardian, Michelle Behnke, who was in London for a gathering on the safety and protection of lawyers, said the ABA was used to dispensing advice to associations in other countries - but the tables had turned, to an extent.

Since taking office, Donald Trump and his government have placed restrictions on some lawyers and law firms, including their ability to freely represent clients, mostly because they have done legal work that the president has opposed or they have been associated with prosecutors who investigated him.