“Are you worried?” That is always the first question.
“Of course I am worried,” I respond. “The president of the United States considers me an enemy and has promised retribution. I would be an idiot not to be worried. But I am not going to give in. I will continue to fight.”
I have had a version of this conversation on and off for years. Since Jan. 20, 2025, I have had it nearly every day.
During his first term Trump posted on Twitter that I was the Democratic Party’s “best Election stealing lawyer.” At the time I took it as an odd form of compliment. Since then, his focus on me has become both more intense and more sinister.
It is hard to pinpoint exactly what triggered his current hatred. Recently, Trump and his supporters have pointed to my work as Hillary Clinton’s 2016 general counsel. But his obsession — and that of his loyal minions — did not truly take hold until 2020.
That year, I litigated dozens of cases to ensure citizens could vote in the middle of a pandemic. That meant expanding opportunities to vote by mail and reducing the number of ballots wrongfully rejected by overburdened election systems.
In the aftermath of that election, my team and I defeated Trump’s effort to overturn the results — winning more than 60 court cases on behalf of Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.
During the height of that effort, on Dec. 7, 2020, an angry Lou Dobbs chastised Stephen Miller on TV for losing so many cases to me. “Marc Elias, why don’t you put together a half-billion dollars and go hire him and get him out of your way?” Miller looked stricken.
In the years that followed, Republicans regularly blamed me for their election losses. Steve Bannon described me as “the gold standard” and frequently complained to his audience that Republicans needed to either recruit me or find someone to match me.
In a 2023 video, Kash Patel, now the FBI director, stated: “He is the enemy of the Republican Party because he always finds a way to win in state court and federal court on election matters, and he has been doing it like a machine for the last decade. So, if you want someone who is that talented and that good, there is only one guy, and I hate to say it—it’s Marc Elias.”
Despite that worry, I cannot stop standing up for what is right. I cannot turn a blind eye to injustice.
But during that time, something had changed in Trump. In the closing weeks of his administration, Trump’s attorney general appointed John Durham as a Special Counsel to investigate the origins of the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Durham’s investigation ultimately led to the indictment of two individuals — one of whom was a law partner of mine. Both men were acquitted after short jury deliberations.
Despite this outcome, Trump’s anger only deepened. In 2022, he named me, along with many others associated with the 2016 campaign, as a defendant in a rambling RICO lawsuit. The complaint was so frivolous that when it was dismissed, several other defendants were able to recover attorneys’ fees, leaving Trump and his lawyers on the hook for $1 million. Appeals in the case are still ongoing.
When Trump said during the 2024 campaign that he would seek revenge and retribution, I knew to take him literally and seriously. When he came into office claiming he wanted to punish those who had “weaponized government” against him, I knew what he really meant — he would weaponize government against his political opponents.
Then, two weeks ago, out of the blue, Trump issued an executive order against my old law firm — a firm I left in 2021 — centered largely on my work there. It was a wildly unhinged and unconstitutional order that sought to punish the firm and its 1,200 lawyers in a myriad of ways, from stripping security clearances to barring their lawyers from entering federal buildings.
After signing that executive order, Trump was asked if he thinks additional steps will be taken “against other people involved in the Russia collusion hoax.” He responded: “I do, but that is ultimately up to the attorney general and various other people.”
In case Pam Bondi and her senior team needed a reminder of how Trump felt about me, they received one in person a week later. Speaking in the Great Hall at the Department of Justice, Trump described me and another lawyer as “bad people, really bad people” and “radicals” who were trying “to turn America into a corrupt, communist, third-world country.”
All of this brings me back to my answer to the question I receive every day.
I worry because Donald Trump has targeted me and those associated with me for retribution. I worry because the attorney general is an election denier eager to please her boss. I worry because the FBI director published an enemies list and has called me “an enemy of the Republican Party.” I worry because the Department of Justice is being hollowed out — its principled career prosecutors replaced by Trump loyalists. I worry because Trump’s hatred inspires the hatred of others, which could lead to violence. I worry because our courts are not equipped to handle widespread, politically motivated, spurious investigations and prosecutions.
Most of all, I worry because, to do my job — to fulfill my duty as a lawyer and as a citizen — I must regularly say and do things that will enrage Trump and his supporters.
But here is the key point: Despite that worry, I cannot stop standing up for what is right. I cannot turn a blind eye to injustice. I cannot ignore what Trump is doing to our democracy and our country. Or more precisely, I will not.
So, I won’t.
Before the election, when Biden was in office and many assumed Kamala Harris would win or that Trump wouldn’t be so bad, it was fashionable to speak about the threat Trump posed and the need to protect democracy.
Now that Trump has proven to be a ruthless autocrat, too many have grown timid and silent.
That is simply not who I am. It is not what I believe, and it is not what I will do.
Instead, I will worry. I will hope. And I will fight.