WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 A federal judge on Friday permanently blocked a White House executive order targeting an elite law firm, dealing a setback to President Donald Trump鈥檚 campaign of retribution against the legal profession.
against the firm of Perkins Coie amounted to 鈥渦nconstitutional retaliation鈥 as she ordered that it be nullified and that the Trump administration halt any enforcement of it.
鈥淣o American President,” Howell wrote in her 102-page order, “has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: 鈥楾he first thing we do, let鈥檚 kill all the lawyers.鈥欌
The ruling was most definitive rejection to date of Trump’s spate of similarly worded executive orders against some of the country’s most elite law firms, by targeting perceived adversaries in hopes of extracting concessions from them and bending them to his will. Several of the firms singled out for sanction have either done legal work that Trump has opposed, or currently have or previously had associations with prosecutors who at one point investigated the president.
The edicts have ordered that the security clearances of attorneys at the targeted firms be suspended, that federal contracts be terminated and that their employees be barred from federal buildings. The punished law firms have called the executive orders an affront to the legal system and at odds with the foundational principle that lawyers should be free to represent whomever they’d like without fear of government reprisal.
In the case of Perkins Coie, the White House cited its representation of Democrat Hillary Clinton鈥檚 campaign during the 2016 presidential race. Trump has also railed against one of the firm’s former lawyers, Marc Elias, who engaged the services of an opposition research firm that in turn hired between Trump and Russia. Elias left the firm 2021.
In her opinion, Howell wrote that Perkins Coie was targeted because the firm 鈥渆xpressed support for employment policies the President does not like, represented clients the President does not like, represented clients seeking litigation results the President does not like, and represented clients challenging some of the President鈥檚 actions, which he also does not like.鈥
鈥淭hat,鈥 she wrote, 鈥渋s unconstitutional retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, plain and simple.鈥
The decision was not surprising given that Howell had earlier temporarily blocked multiple provisions of the order and had expressed deep misgivings about the edict at a more recent hearing, Her ruling Friday permanently bars enforcement of the executive order. She also directed Attorney General Pam Bondi and Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to provide copies of her opinion to all government departments and agencies that had previously received the executive order.
The other law firms that have challenged orders against them 鈥擶ilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey 鈥 have succeeded in at least temporarily blocking the orders. ’
, among other things, to collectively dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars in free legal services in support of causes the Trump administration says it supports.
