Trump administration drops suits against law firms with ties to Democrats and other Trump foes
Despite Trump’s dislike for certain lawyers who had opposed him at the firms and his attempts to use executive orders against them, the firms – Perkins Coie, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey – had each been protected by federal judges in Washington, DC, who ruled against the administration last year.
Each of the firms, Trump said, had employed lawyers who had investigated or opposed him personally. He attempted to use the powers of the presidency to deprive the firms’ lawyers of access to federal buildings, secured classified information and meetings with federal agencies – all mainstays of Washington-based legal work.
The firms were notified by the administration this weekend that it was dropping its appeals, according to a source familiar with the decision, and the Justice Department notified the appeals court on Monday night that it and the firms wanted to have the cases dismissed. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
Each of the four law firms in turn cheered their win, while criticizing the Trump administration attempting to chill their clients’ choices of who would represent challenges in court and behind the scenes opposite the federal government.
The firm had employed members of the former special counsel office of Robert Mueller that investigated Trump after the 2016 election. “As we said from the outset, our challenge to the unlawful Executive Order was about defending our clients’ constitutional right to retain the counsel of their choosing and defending the rule of law. We are pleased these foundational principles were vindicated,” Wilmer Hale’s statement said.
“No president is permitted to broadly target or punish groups without appropriate due process, even under the guise of national security,” Zaid’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement on Monday.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/02/politics/trump-administration-drops-suits-against-law-firms
= new reply since forum marked as read