Judge Permanently Bars DJT’s Executive Order Targeting Law Firm Perkins Coie

Federal District Court Judge Beryl Howell permanently declared “null and void” an executive order by Donald Trump that attacked the major law firm Perkins Coie by stripping it of contracts, security clearances and access to government buildings and contractors.

Perkins Coie was the first major law firm targeted by Trump with such an executive order. At least nine have caved in, some without waiting to be targeted, offering a total of nearly a billion dollars worth of legal services at no charge for Trump’s chosen causes and making other concessions. Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey fought back and have all won temporary rulings against Trump in court. Howell’s ruling is the first to permanently block one of Trump’s retaliatory actions against law firms.

Trump’s order lambasted the firm and declared it a risk to national security due to its past work for the 2016 campaign of Hillary Clinton and liberal donor George Soros.

Howell’s ruling began with:

No American President 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.” WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HENRY VI, PART 2, act 4, sc. 2, l. 75. When Shakespeare’s character, a rebel leader intent on becoming king, see id. l. 74, hears this suggestion, he promptly incorporates this tactic as part of his plan to assume power, leading in the same scene to the rebel leader demanding “[a]way with him,” referring to an educated clerk, who “can make obligations and write court hand,” id. l. 90, 106. Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power. See Walters v. Nat’l Ass’n of Radiation Survivors, 473 U.S. 305, 371 n.24 (1985) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (explaining the import of the same Shakespearean statement to be “that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government”).

In a significant departure from standard practice, Howell explicitly ordered the Department of Justice to “notify all recipients that they are required to comply with this Order, under penalty of contempt.”

She wrote, “No American President 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.”

She also wrote, “In a cringe-worthy twist on the theatrical phrase, “Let’s kill all the lawyers, [Trump] takes the approach of ‘Let’s kill the lawyers I don’t like,’ sending the clear message: lawyers must stick to the party line, or else.”

She said Trump’s action violated the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution. She described it as “settling personal vendettas” with actions that had “no legitimate government interest, but only the interest of retaliation.”

Howell noted that by prohibiting entry into government buildings by Perkins Coie attorneys, Trump effectively barred its clients from their constitutional rights to adequate legal representation.

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