Trump targets security clearances of law firm over actions related to
2016 Russia investigation
[March 07, 2025]
By ERIC TUCKER
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he was moving to
suspend the security clearances of attorneys at a prominent law firm
linked to Democratic-funded opposition research during the 2016
presidential campaign into ties between the Republican candidate and
Russia.
The sanction against Perkins Coie is the latest in a series of
retributive moves by Trump and his administration targeting a broad
cross-section of perceived adversaries, including Justice Department
prosecutors, career intelligence officials and most recently
private-practice attorneys. Taken together, the actions appear designed
not only to settle scores from years past but also to deter both
government officials and private sector workers from participating in
new inquiries into his conduct.
“This is an absolute honor to sign. What they've done is just terrible.
It's weaponization — you could say weaponization against a political
opponent, and it should never be allowed to happen again,” Trump said
after being presented with the executive order at the Oval Office.
The executive order directs the attorney general, the director of
national intelligence and other relevant agency heads to “take steps
consistent with applicable law to suspend any active security clearances
held by individuals at Perkins Coie, pending a review of whether such
clearances are consistent with the national interest.” It does not say
how many lawyers at the law firm which did not immediately respond to a
written request for comment, might have such a clearance.
It also instructs agency heads to restrict access to government
buildings by attorneys at the firm “when such access would threaten the
national security of or otherwise be inconsistent with the interests of
the United States" and to identify, and cancel, contracts they have with
the firm.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the firm said: “We have reviewed the
Executive Order. It is patently unlawful, and we intend to challenge
it.”
The punishment arises from the hiring by Perkins Coie of Fusion GPS, a
research and intelligence firm, to conduct opposition research on
then-candidate Trump’s potential ties to Russia. The arrangement was
brokered by Marc Elias, who at the time was a well-connected partner at
Perkins Coie and top lawyer for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential
campaign but who has since left the firm and started his own practice.
Fusion GPS in return retained former British spy Christopher Steele,
whose dossier of research circulated among journalists and government
officials in Washington during the campaign. The dossier, which was
turned over to the FBI for its review, contended that Russia was engaged
in a longstanding effort to aid Trump and had amassed compromising
information about him.
But the material has since been largely discredited as containing
salacious and unverified rumors linking Trump to Russia, with Special
counsel John Durham’s 2023 report on the origins of the FBI's Russia
investigation saying that FBI investigators who tried to corroborate
Steele’s findings were unable to verify a “single substantive
allegation.” Steele has stood by his work.
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President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the
Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (Win McNamee/Pool
Photo via AP)
The dossier created a political firestorm in January 2017, when it
was revealed that then- FBI Director James Comey had briefed Trump
before he took office on the existence of allegations from the
research. The subsequent revelation that the Clinton campaign and
the Democratic National Committee had helped fund the dossier added
to questions about the legitimacy of Steele's research, which Trump
as president repeatedly attacked as “phony” and inaccurate.
Trump and his allies have long tried to use the dossier's flaws to
undermine the entire investigation into connections between his 2016
campaign and Russia. But the reality is that investigation began
weeks before the FBI agents who were working on it came into
possession of dossier and was opened based on an entirely different
tip — that a Trump campaign aide claimed to have knowledge that
Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton, Trump's opponent, well before
Russia was known to have hacked Democratic emails.
And though special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation did not
conclude that Russia and the Trump campaign had criminally conspired
to tip the election, it did identify a sweeping effort by the
Kremlin to intervene on the Republican candidate's behalf as well as
evidence that the campaign welcomed the help.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has fired Justice
Department prosecutors who participated in special counsel Jack
Smith's investigations into Trump. It also said it was stripping
security clearances of lawyers who provided legal services for Smith
and of dozens of former intelligence officials who signed onto a
2020 letter asserting that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the
hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.
The Perkins Coie executive order also alleges that the firm engages
in what the Trump administration describes as unlawful diversity,
equity and inclusion practices.
That follows a directive from Attorney General Pam Bondi last month
that calls on the Justice Department’s civil rights division to
“investigate, eliminate and penalize illegal” DEI “preferences,
mandates, policies, programs and activities in the private sector
and in educational institutions that receive federal funds.”
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Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer and Michelle L. Price
in Washington contributed to this report.
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