Trump Signs Executive Order Punishing Law Firm Perkins Coie For Representing His Political Adversaries, Resolves Long-Standing Concern That Sixth Amendment Was Applying To His Enemies

The Filing

WASHINGTON. President Donald J. Trump on Thursday signed an executive order suspending the security clearances held by employees of the law firm Perkins Coie LLP, restricting the firm's attorneys from federal buildings, and instructing federal agencies to terminate any contracts with the firm, an action the White House described as a measured response to the firm's long history of representing clients the President considers his enemies.

The order, titled "Addressing Risks From Perkins Coie LLP," cites the firm's 2016 representation of the Hillary Clinton campaign, its involvement in the funding of what the President referred to in remarks as "the Russia hoax," and its general willingness to take cases against him as evidence of a pattern of conduct from which the federal workforce should now be protected. Administration officials clarified that the order was not directed at the firm as a whole, only at any of its roughly 1,200 attorneys who had ever performed their professional duties in a manner Mr. Trump did not personally enjoy.

"For too long, lawyers in this country have operated under the misapprehension that they may represent whomever they wish, including individuals attempting to sue, prosecute, or in any way inconvenience the President of the United States," Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, holding up the signed order. "Those days are over. If you want to practice law in this country, that's fine. You just can't practice it against me." The President added that the order was, in his view, both deeply constitutional and, separately, a long-overdue act of common sense.

Within hours, partners at Perkins Coie reported that several Fortune 500 clients had begun reaching out to inquire whether the firm could continue representing them on regulatory matters without the executive branch refusing to take its calls, a development that one industry analyst characterized as the precise outcome the order had been designed to produce. Over the following weeks, Mr. Trump signed materially identical orders against Paul Weiss, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block, and Susman Godfrey, each of which had at some point employed an attorney involved in prosecuting or investigating him.

A federal judge subsequently issued a temporary restraining order blocking key provisions of the Perkins Coie directive, finding it likely to violate the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, a ruling the administration characterized as further evidence of the precise judicial overreach the order had been intended to address. Paul Weiss, by contrast, settled with the White House and agreed to provide roughly $40 million in pro bono legal services to administration priorities, a resolution the President described as "really beautiful," and which legal ethicists described using other words.

At press time, attorneys at firms not yet named in an executive order had begun quietly auditing their pro bono dockets for any cases brought against the federal government, the President, or anyone the President might at some point identify.

Who Benefits

§Donald J. Trump personally, who acquires a federal mechanism for inflicting financial and reputational harm on private attorneys who have represented his adversaries, and who establishes that the cost of doing legal work against him will be borne by the firm.
§The Trump Organization, whose future litigation adversaries must now weigh the additional risk that their chosen counsel may be punished by executive order before the case is even filed.
§Friendly law firms, particularly those that have publicly aligned with the administration, who gain a quiet competitive advantage as competitors lose federal clearances, federal contracts, and federal-adjacent corporate clients.
§Paul Weiss specifically, which avoided sanction by pledging tens of millions in free legal work for administration priorities, establishing that capitulation is rewarded with restored access.
§Future authoritarian-leaning administrations of any party, which inherit a working precedent in which the executive may discipline the private bar for representation choices.
§The President's prospective civil and criminal defense teams, whose adversaries' counsel can now be deterred at scale rather than litigated against one motion at a time.
§Executive branch retaliation generally, as the order operationalizes punishment by EO and demonstrates the speed at which a law firm's federal-facing practice can be hollowed out by signature.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment