Sixteen years into his political career, City Attorney David Chiu is about to face what could be his greatest test yet: defending San Francisco against legal broadsides from President-elect Donald Trump.
Chiu, 54, is expected to play a prominent role in a courtroom campaign to push back on Trump if he targets liberal cities such as San Francisco, possibly by trying to withhold federal funds over sanctuary policies he opposes as he seeks to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
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The legal resistance for Democrats such as Chiu may be more difficult than the last time Trump was in office. While Chiu’s predecessor, Dennis Herrera, was broadly successful in his many legal fights against Trump during his first term, experts say the president-elect and his staff have learned from some of their mistakes the last time they held the White House. They will also benefit from having Republican control of both chambers of Congress and a Supreme Court with a conservative supermajority.
Chiu, a former supervisor and state Assembly member who has been City Hall’s top lawyer since 2021, is preparing for a fight on multiple fronts — and believes he and the city are ready to prevail.
“Trump has said he is going to go after anyone and any jurisdictions that do not do what he wants and has suggested everything up to criminal prosecutions,” Chiu said in a recent interview at his City Hall office. “So there’s a lot of concern around the country around what that means. But … we have to stand up for our communities and we will.”
Chiu said he’s already been meeting with “cities and counties across the country that are preparing for what we’re expecting will happen to our communities.” He’s appointed a deputy city attorney, Mollie Lee, to focus on Trump-related legal matters. And he’s among a group of city attorneys and county counsels from across the state who are asking the Legislature to allocate $10 million to help them defend their jurisdictions against Trump.
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