Upside Down Justice? Sorting Out Trump's Threats to Law Firms
By Nick Licata
“No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue,” U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell wrote in a 102-page opinion. Howell was referring to Trump punishing a law firm without evidence of the firm violating a law, ordering the government to cancel their contracts and blocking their employees from entering government buildings, interacting with government officials, or being hired for government jobs.
The firm being punished was the Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie, which represented Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential race. Aside from representing Guantanamo Bay inmates, Trump declared that “Perkins Coie works with activist donors.”
Trump specifically mentioned George Soros as one of those activists whom the far-right connects to a Jewish left-wing conspiracy. It seemed like a spurious reference, but was it a nod to some of his MAGA base? Trump claims that leftist activists used the courts “to judicially overturn popular, necessary, and democratically enacted election laws, including those requiring voter identification.”
In other words, Perkins Coie lawyers assisted those examining election laws that could have suppressed voter turnout among specific populations, such as Black Americans. Howell wrote that the order was so broad as to be “issuing an executive order targeting the firm based on the president’s dislike of the political positions of the firm’s clients or the firm’s litigation positions is retaliatory and runs head-on into the role of First Amendment protection.”
https://www.postalley.org/2025/05/18/upside-down-justice-sorting-out-trumps-threats-to-law-firms/