A judge appeared skeptical at a hearing on Monday of the Trump administration’s decision to target a top law firm’s employees with an executive order that suspended their security clearances and limited their access to federal buildings.
Judge John Bates told a Department of Justice attorney his interpretation of the security clearance provision was “strange” as the judge weighs whether to block the Trump administration from carrying out the executive order against Jenner & Block permanently.
Bates, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, did not rule from the bench but indicated that he planned not to take “too much time” to reach a decision.
The DOJ attorney, Richard Lawson, argued that the security clearance section of the executive order would “never be a blanket ban.” He said revocations of Jenner & Block employees’ security clearances would only happen on an individualized basis upon review of the clearance holder.
Bates raised hypotheticals, asking if Trump could target Muslims with security clearance suspensions.
Lawson replied that targeting a group for its religion is “very different,” pointing to the part of the executive order in which Trump laid out “specified” concerns about the “trustworthiness” of Jenner & Block.
The judge then asked about targeting all graduates of Harvard University, some of whom, like Jenner & Block, would “fall on the wrong side of the president’s view of people.” Lawson objected to the comparison, saying Harvard graduates were “such a larger group.”
“It’s all right on the smaller group but not on the larger group. … Is that how the Constitution works?” the judge asked.
Trump said in his order that Jenner & Block, which was founded more than a century ago and has more than 900 employees, engages in racial discrimination and “activities that undermine justice and the interests of the United States.” Trump said the firm has supported men competing in women’s sports and helped illegal immigrants outsmart the court system.
Trump also noted the firm once employed Andrew Weissmann, a prominent liberal attorney who led former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into allegations that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. Weissmann’s “career has been rooted in weaponized government,” Trump said.
The hearing comes after Trump used his authority to attempt to tip the political scales in Big Law by threatening firms that he said were too liberal, engaged in “partisan lawfare,” or employed his political enemies. The president has named about half a dozen firms in executive orders that suspend their employees’ security clearances, block them from entering federal buildings, and prohibit government contractors from using their firms.
Jenner & Block joined both Perkins Coie and WilmerHale in waging legal battles with the president over the orders, arguing they are unconstitutional and should be permanently enjoined. Judges have sided entirely with the firms in the early stages of litigation but have not issued any permanent rulings yet.
Bates granted a temporary restraining order last month that banned the Trump administration from carrying out certain parts of the executive order.
Jenner & Block is now urging the judge to permanently enjoin the entire order.
“This order is designed to do one thing,” an attorney for the firm said in court. “It’s designed to punish a law firm because of the cases it takes and because of its affiliation with a critic of the president.”
Judge Beryl Howell, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, granted a similar temporary restraining order for Perkins Coie, and Judge Richard Leon, a Bush appointee, granted one for WilmerHale. Like Bates, both judges are now weighing whether to block Trump’s entire executive order fully.
TRUMP PERKINS COIE ORDER IS ‘NOT DESIGNED TO PUNISH’: DOJ
Other firms on Trump’s target list, including Paul Weiss, reached agreements with the administration that involved the firms committing what has totaled roughly $1 billion in pro bono services to the government. The agreements allowed the firms to avert becoming the targets of executive orders.
The legal industry has largely rallied behind the law firms that chose to take Trump to court, and thousands of lawyers have signed on to amicus briefs backing their lawsuits. Paul Clement, a high-profile conservative Supreme Court litigator, is representing WilmerHale.
Bill Bock, an attorney for several conservative clients, previously told the Washington Examiner that “Big Law has tended to be completely captured by the Left” and said that can lead to disparate real-world consequences for those with conservative viewpoints.
“They represent big businesses, and many of those businesses figured out that if they take a leftist-leaning approach, whether it’s on climate change, vaccines, or canceling anyone who supported President Trump, they’ll get a pass on everything else,” Bock said.