In 2004, I was assigned by the federal court, along with one of my senior assistants, to represent Portland Attorney Brandon Mayfield. He had been arrested on a material witness warrant when he was mistakenly connected by the FBI and US Attorney for Oregon to the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid, Spain. After a furious two weeks of investigation and legal motions, and after the FBI’s assertions about a fingerprint match were debunked, Mr. Mayfield was released.

“It Can’t Happen Here,” Sinclair Lewis’ novel that posited an authoritarian takeover of the United States through the electoral process was published in 1936. More recently, a number of scholars have identified steps in what they call the Authoritarian Playbook. These include undermining the rule of law and faith in the electoral process, chilling and punishing dissent, pitting “real Americans” against, “the other,” attacking educational institutions, attacking and co-opting the media, and attacking the legal profession.