WASHINGTON (AP) — A prominent law firm targeted by President Donald Trump called a White House executive order “an unconstitutional abuse of power against lawyers, their clients, and the legal system” in a federal lawsuit filed Friday that urged a judge to block its enforcement.
Jenner & Block said the order — one in a series of White House edicts over the last month that takes aim at law firms over their connections to lawyers who Trump does not like — threatens the bedrock foundations of the legal system and is meant to coerce lawyers and law firms into renouncing critics of the Trump administration.
“Our Constitution, top to bottom, forbids attempts by the government to punish citizens and lawyers based on the clients they represent, the positions they advocate, the opinions they voice, and the people with whom they associate,” says the complaint, which was filed in federal court in Washington.
The firm, which is more than 100 years old, said in a statement that it expects to “prevail quickly.” It said it had no interest in “capitulating to unconstitutional government coercion,” a perhaps veiled reference to a deal struck last week with the White House by another targeted firm, Paul Weiss. The chairman of that firm said it faced an “existential crisis” and struck a deal as a way to preserve the law firm.
The executive order against Jenner & Block this week stemmed from the fact that the firm once employed Andrew Weissmann, a lawyer who served on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team that investigated Trump during his first term in office. Weissmann left the firm four years ago.
The firm is the second to sue over a Trump executive order, following the path of Perkins Coie, which succeeded this month in getting a judge to block portions of it from being implemented.
Other firms that have faced similar orders include Covington & Burling and most recently WilmerHale, a firm connected to Mueller and several of his top aides.
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