Judge blocks Trump executive order targeting elite law firm, a blow to
his retribution campaign
[May 03, 2025]
By ERIC TUCKER
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday permanently blocked a White
House executive order targeting an elite law firm, dealing a setback to
President Donald Trump’s campaign of retribution against the legal
profession.
U.S. District Beryl Howell said the executive order against the firm of
Perkins Coie amounted to “unconstitutional retaliation” as she ordered
that it be nullified and that the Trump administration halt any
enforcement of it.
“No 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: ‘The
first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’”
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, part of a broader effort by the president to reshape
American civil society 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’s 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 a former British spy who produced files of research examining
potential ties between Trump and Russia. Elias left the firm 2021.
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President Donald Trump arrives at Palm Beach International Airport
in West Palm Beach, Fla., Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel
Balce Ceneta)
In her opinion, Howell wrote that Perkins Coie was targeted because
the firm “expressed 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’s actions, which he also does not like.”
“That,” she wrote, “is unconstitutional retaliation and viewpoint
discrimination, plain and simple.”
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,
when she grilled a Justice Department lawyer who was tasked with
justifying it. 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 —WilmerHale,
Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey — have succeeded in at least
temporarily blocking the orders. '
But other major firms have sought to avert orders by preemptively
reaching settlements that require them, 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.
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