WilmerHale and Jenner & Block have sued the Trump administration today (28 March) over executive orders that targeted them for their ties to lawyers involved in an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The two firms have filed separate lawsuits in a federal court in Washington DC asking the courts to block the orders. WilmerHale is being represented by Paul Clement, a prominent litigator who was solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, while Jenner is being represented by a Cooley team led by Michael Attanasio.
Jenner & Block said the order against it was “an unconstitutional abuse of power against lawyers, their clients and the legal system”, in a complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
Jenner & Block and WilmerHale are two of five major US firms that have been targeted recently with executive orders, as Trump takes aim at law firms he maintains have supported efforts to unfairly prosecute him or help his opponents. The orders suspend their lawyers’ security clearances, restrict their access to government buildings and threaten the firms and their clients with the loss of their government contracts.
In its complaint, Jenner & Block said that more than 40% of its revenue over the last five years had come from clients who were government contractors or subcontractors.
Jenner & Block said the executive order targeting the firm was “intended to hamper the ability of individuals and businesses to have the lawyer of their choice zealously represent them”.
The firm added: “It is intended to coerce law firms and lawyers into renouncing the administration’s critics and ceasing certain representations adverse to the government.”
The order cited Jenner & Block’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.
Meantime the order targeting WilmerHale pointed to the firm’s hire of Mueller following the investigation, which it described as “one of the most partisan in American history”. Mueller retired from the firm in 2021.
WilmerHale said its order was “a plainly unlawful attack on the bedrock principles of our nation’s legal system – our clients’ right to counsel and the First Amendment”.
It added the terms of a “nearly identical executive order” had already been enjoined by a federal judge and that it had filed the lawsuit “for immediate relief to protect the rights of our clients”.
Trump has also taken aim at Covington & Burling, Paul Weiss and Perkins Coie with executive orders. Perkins Coie sued the administration over its order and on 12 March won a temporary restraining order blocking it.
Paul Weiss struck a deal with the Trump administration earlier this month 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”.
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