Trump's orders targeting law firms raise constitutional concerns, experts say

[Eugene]

Earlier DU threads:
• Trump targets prominent Democratic-linked law firm
• Trump executive order targets Seattle's largest law firm

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Source: Reuters

Trump's orders targeting law firms raise constitutional concerns, experts say

Mike Scarcella
Sat, March 8, 2025 at 6:30 AM EST 6 min read

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump's executive orders terminating security clearances and taking other actions against two prominent law firms may violate constitutional protections and represent exceptional acts of retribution against lawyers who have crossed him in the past, according to legal experts.

The two firms targeted by the Republican president have represented Trump adversaries. Perkins Coie represented the campaign of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who Trump defeated in his first presidential run. Covington currently represents Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed during Democratic former President Joe Biden's administration who brought criminal charges against Trump in two cases.

Legal experts interviewed by Reuters said the manner in which Trump targeted the firms could run afoul of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections against government abridgment of speech and Fifth Amendment guarantee of due process - a requirement for the government to use a fair legal process.

Trump on Thursday directed Attorney General Pam Bondi, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and all U.S. agency chiefs to restrict access by lawyers at Perkins Coie, a firm founded in Seattle, to federal buildings and end their security clearances.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-orders-targeting-law-firms-113029239.html

[Blues Heron]

1. go get him!

It really is up to the pukes to stop this nightmare. How far they allow it to go will be the ultimate measure of how far this country has fallen. Will they woken up in time? Only time will tell.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. MaddowBlog-Jamie Raskin calls the White House's campaign against law firms 'dangerous as hell'

When Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting a private law firm, it was seen as an outrageous abuse. It didn’t stop him from doing it again.
https://bsky.app/profile/deec00p1953.bsky.social/post/3ljt4xsyrt22v

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/jamie-raskin-calls-white-houses-campaign-law-firms-dangerous-hell-rcna195392

Donald Trump and his team weren’t content to simply go after former special counsel Jack Smith, they also targeted career Justice Department officials who worked on Smith’s team. There was no evidence they’d done anything wrong or failed to do their jobs effectively, but they were a stop on the president’s revenge tour......

And then he did it again. The Washington Post reported:

In an Oval Office ceremony, the president signed an executive order hitting the large international law firm Perkins Coie with a sweeping directive that bans the federal government from hiring it, or from using contractors who work with it, except in limited circumstances. The order also bars Perkins Coie employees from entering federal buildings and suspends their security clearances.

In politics, Perkins Coie is known for, among other prominent things, representing Hillary Clinton.

The Post’s report added, “The move could have a chilling effect on law firms’ willingness to take on clients and cases that run counter to the Trump administration, challenging a fundamental tenet of the rule of law in the United States that everyone should have access to legal representation, experts said.”

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, issued a statement describing the White House’s campaign as “dangerous as hell.”.....

The Democratic congressman concluded, “By threatening to seek costs and damages from private litigants, Donald Trump is trying to scare Americans out of court. Thanks to our Founders, we have a right to get lawyers to challenge the Administration’s blatantly unlawful efforts to freeze funds to essential government programs like wildfire prevention, scientific research and food assistance. We have a right to get brave lawyers to challenge MAGA and DOGE when they fire thousands of government workers and shut down agencies that defend American consumers against frauds and scams.”

Time will tell how and whether the relevant firms respond to the Republican’s offensive, but Raskin’s point is a good one. Circling back to our recent coverage, I can appreciate why many have grown inured — to Trump’s pettiness, to his abuses, to his fixation on retaliatory revenge, etc. — but it’s worth pausing to appreciate that steps like these aren’t supposed to be part of politics in the United States. The president is using the power of his office to punish private law firms, not because they did something improper or illegal, but because he disapproves of the firms taking on matters that affected him personally.

Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who also had his security clearance revoked by Trump, told the Times last week that the president’s first executive order on this was “a disgraceful affront to the entire legal and national security system.”

The fact that Trump then did it again makes matters vastly worse.