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President Donald Trump listens to a question from a reporter before signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 31, 2025 (Pool via AP).
A judge in Washington, D.C., took the Trump administration to the woodshed — and the annals of literature — in a forceful and final rejection of an executive order aimed at curtailing the power and influence of one of the nation’s top law firms.
In the underlying litigation, Perkins Coie, LLP sued over an early March executive order in which President Donald Trump accused the firm of engaging in racially discriminatory hiring practices over their commitment to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” principles and, separately, of “undermining democratic elections.”
The order suspended security clearances from Perkins Coie employees and stripped their access to government buildings. Ultimately, the court viewed those moves as “retribution” for the plaintiff’s work, including the firm’s high-profile representation of Hillary Clinton during her failed 2016 presidential campaign.
In a 5-page order and accompanying 102-page memorandum opinion, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued a clean sweep for the plaintiffs. The court found the executive order “unlawful because it violates the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution” and “therefore null and void.”
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The introductory lines of the court’s opinion are incisive and instructive of the total loss for the government in the case.
“No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,”” Howell writes. “Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power.”
While viewing the 45th and 47th president’s attacks on Perkins Coie as part of a “broader campaign” against disfavored law firms, the court slightly updates the Shakespearean verse to accommodate the present moment.
“In a cringe-worthy twist on the theatrical phrase ‘Let’s kill all the lawyers,’ EO 14230 takes the approach of ‘Let’s kill the lawyers I don’t like,’ sending the clear message: lawyers must stick to the party line, or else,” Howell adds.
The judge’s opinion paints an image of a presidency adorned with and seeking power — and using the presidential prerogative in an effort to attain evermore, albeit unconstitutionally.
“Using the powers of the federal government to target lawyers for their representation of clients and avowed progressive employment policies in an overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints, however, is contrary to the Constitution,” the opinion goes on. “The Supreme Court has long made clear that ‘no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics … or other matters of opinion.’ Simply put, government officials ‘cannot … use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.’ That, however, is exactly what is happening here.”
In this case, Howell has consistently rejected the government’s efforts as violative of the First and Fifth Amendments.
In mid-March, she issued a temporary restraining order, using a relatively modern literary reference to the Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
During a hearing late last month, she termed the executive order “temper tantrum” behavior that was “worthy of a 3-year-old.”
On motions for summary judgment, the judge ended the case. The court permanently enjoined the executive order and barred the government from implementing or enforcing it “in any way.”
The judge’s constitutional analysis, while lengthy, reads like an easy call. She finds every manifestation of the Perkins Coie executive order a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.
“EO 14230, the accompanying fact sheet, and the context surrounding the Order’s issuance each express President Trump’s disapproval of plaintiff’s First Amendment activity and demonstrate that EO 14230 targeted plaintiff because the Firm expressed support for employment policies the President does not like, represented clients the President does not like, represented clients seeking litigation results the President does not like, and represented clients challenging some of the President’s actions, which he also does not like,” Howell observes. “That is unconstitutional retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, plain and simple.”
Presidential chagrin also looms large in the Fifth Amendment analysis, where the court again suggested the issues were clear-cut.
“Some of plaintiff’s current and former clients and employment practices are unpopular with President Trump and his administration — due to the speech and associations, real or perceived, reflected in those relationships and policies — and EO 14230 was issued to harm plaintiff,” the opinion continues. “Under the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, however, settling personal vendettas by targeting a disliked business or individual for punitive government action is not a legitimate use of the powers of the U.S. government or an American President.”
But, the judge notes, the executive order also had knock-on effects for Perkins Coie’s clients as well. And those effects resulted in a constitutional violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
“EO 14230 has already forced plaintiff’s clients to choose between using their chosen lawyers and facing potential consequences from the government due to who they have hired as counsel,” the opinion goes on. “Forcing plaintiff’s clients to make such a choice violates their Sixth Amendment rights.”
The court frames the Trump administration’s anti-law firm efforts as an “unprecedented attack” on U.S. principles.
“The importance of independent lawyers to ensuring the American judicial system’s fair and impartial administration of justice has been recognized in this country since its founding era,” Howell muses. “In 1770, John Adams made the singularly unpopular decision to represent eight British soldiers charged with murder for their roles in the Boston Massacre and ‘claimed later to have suffered the loss of more than half his practice.’ …When the Bill of Rights was ratified, these principles were codified into the Constitution.”
