Jenner & Block has become the latest Big Law firm to be the subject of an executive order, as President Donald Trump continues to target law firms he maintains have supported efforts to unfairly prosecute him or help his opponents. 

The order against Jenner, signed on Tuesday (25 March), cited the firm’s previous employment of prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who was involved in former US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump in his first term over possible links to Russia. 

It is similar to the orders Trump earlier issued to Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss, suspending their lawyers’ security clearances, restricting their access to government buildings and threatening the firms and their clients with the loss of their government contracts. 

Perkins Coie is suing the administration over the order and won a temporary restraining order blocking it.

In a statement Jenner & Block said the order targeting it was “similar to one which has already been declared unconstitutional” by a federal court. 

“We remain focused on serving and safeguarding our clients’ interests with the dedication, integrity and expertise that has defined our firm for more than one hundred years and will pursue all appropriate remedies,” the firm said.

Trump’s order against Jenner declared that many law firms “take actions that threaten public safety and national security, limit constitutional freedoms, degrade the quality of American elections, or undermine bedrock American principles”. It added that firms often “conduct this harmful activity through their powerful pro bono practices”. 

Lawyers and law firms that “engage in such egregious conduct should not have access to our nation’s secrets, nor should such conduct be subsidised by federal taxpayer funds or contracts”.

Jenner, it said, had “abused its pro bono practice to engage in activities that undermine justice and the interests of the United States”, including by engaging in “obvious partisan representations to achieve political ends”.

Reuters reported Jenner has been involved in litigation challenging policies pursued by Trump since he returned to office, including representing immigrant rights groups challenging efforts by the Trump administration to curtail asylum rights.  

So far four major US firms have been targeted by Trump through executive orders, with Covington & Burling also the subject of an order in February that suspended security clearances for its lawyers advising former special counsel Jack Smith, who unsuccessfully prosecuted Donald Trump on behalf of the Justice Department under the Biden administration.

The crackdown appears to be widening, with Trump directing US attorney general Pam Bondi last week to review the “conduct” of lawyers and law firms that have brought litigation against the federal government over the last eight years. 

Paul Weiss struck a deal with the Trump administration to escape the order targeting it. The move drew criticism from the legal community, including from Marc Elias, a former Perkins Coie partner, who wrote on social media the agreement was “a stain on the firm, every one of its partners and the entire legal profession”.

In a letter to his firm’s lawyers and staff defending the decision, Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp said the order “could easily have destroyed our firm”. 

Frustrated by the lack of public opposition from leadership, associates from dozens of major US firms have signed an open letter criticising the administration for its attempts to “bully corporate law firms out of engaging in any representation that challenges the administration’s aims” and calling on their bosses to do the same. More than 1,560 associates have anonymously signed the letter since it was published earlier this month.

Last week, Rachel Cohen, a Chicago-based associate at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom who helped coordinate the open letter, gave her conditional notice to the firm citing law firms’ collective failure to challenge Trump’s attacks on the profession.

The American Bar Association (ABA) has also issued statements condemning criticism of judges by administration officials and accusing Trump of punishing law firms because of whom they represent.

And last week, 18 national and international professional bodies, including the Commonwealth Lawyers Association and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, issued a joint statement condemning “the recent targeting of legal professionals by the US government”.