Signage is seen outside of the law firm WilmerHale in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 30, 2020.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
Two more law firms sued the Trump administration on Friday over executive orders by President Donald Trump targeting them for employing attorneys who worked on criminal investigations of the president.
The lawsuits by WilmerHale and Jenner & Block come weeks after Perkins Coie filed a suit after it was targeted by a Trump order.
All three so-called Big Law firms claim in separate civil complaints in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that the retributive orders are clear violations of the U.S. Constitution.
Since February, Trump has signed executive orders targeting five law firms with punishments that included suspending their attorneys’ security clearances, terminating federal contracts, launching investigations of their hiring practices, and barring them from access to federal buildings.
Trump’s orders explicitly cited their employment of his longtime foes or their work on cases against him.
Last week, he rescinded one order — aimed at Paul, Weiss — after that firm struck an agreement with the Trump administration that included its attorneys committing to performing $40 million worth of pro bono work for causes that the president supports.
Trump’s March 14 order against Paul, Weiss had pointed to the firm’s 2022 re-hiring of what the president called “unethical attorney” Mark Pomerantz after the lawyer resigned from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he oversaw a criminal investigation into Trump’s finances.
WilmerHale, in its lawsuit Friday, said that Trump’s orders are “an undisguised form of retaliation for representing clients and causes he disfavors or employing lawyers he dislikes.”
Jenner & Block, in its complaint, called Trump’s order against the firm “an unconstitutional abuse of power against lawyers, their clients, and the legal system.”
“It is intended to hamper the ability of individuals and businesses to have the lawyers of their choice zealously represent them,” Jenner’s attorneys wrote.
“And it is intended to coerce law firms and lawyers into renouncing the Administration’s critics and ceasing certain representations adverse to the government.”
On Feb. 25, Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi and other agency heads to suspend the security clearances of employees at law firm Covington & Burling who “assisted” former Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith during his investigations of Trump.
Smith’s probes resulted in two federal criminal indictments against Trump. The cases were abandoned in late 2024 after the Republican won the presidential election due to a DOJ policy that bars prosecuting sitting presidents for federal crimes.
Covington has said they represent Smith in his personal capacity, and not as part of any investigation into Trump.
The March 6 order targeting Perkins Coie highlighted the firm’s representation of former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and its hiring of the firm FusionGPS, which produced a controversial and unsubstantiated “dossier” of opposition research on Trump during his 2016 campaign against Clinton.
Trump’s executive order on Monday criticizes Jenner & Block for hiring Andrew Weissman, who was a lead prosecutor for then-special counsel Robert Mueller during his probe of possible coordination between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump on Wednesday signed an order that homed in on WilmerHale’s hiring of Mueller and his colleagues.
U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell on March 12 temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing parts of the executive order against Perkins Coie.
On Wednesday, Howell rejected an effort by the DOJ to remove her from the case.
The orders against Jenner and WilmerHale came days after Trump signed a presidential memo authorizing Attorney General Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to sanction law firms and lawyers who take “frivolous” legal actions against the United States.
