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A federal judge late Friday froze parts of President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm Jenner & Block, one of two firms linked to the Robert Mueller investigation Trump has sought to punish. The temporary restraining order, announced by Judge John Bates at the end of a hastily scheduled Friday hearing, pauses parts of the order instructing agencies to terminate contracts with the firm and its clients, as well as the order’s directives seeking to limit the firm’s access to federal officials and buildings. The Jenner & Block hearing unfolded minutes after a different judge in the same courthouse heard a similar request from the law firm WilmerHale, which was also targeted by Trump in an executive order issued this week.
At that hearing, US District Judge Richard Leon, said he was “inclined” to temporarily block parts of Trump’s executive order targeting the firm, saying he had concerns about how the order could chill the company’s legal work. In his executive orders, Trump also said he was taking aim at Jenner & Block and WilmerHale because of their work on political causes he disagreed with and because of their ties to the Mueller probe, as both firms previously or currently employed veterans of that investigation. Leon, an appointee of former President George W.
Bush, expressed concern at various points about how the president’s order could cause some clients to go elsewhere for legal representation if they had concerns with how effectively WilmerHale’s attorneys could provide legal services. Trump’s order directs federal agencies to suspend the security clearances and access to federal buildings of lawyers for the law firm and to curtail hiring people from the firm. Additionally, it directs agencies to review any contracts they may have with the firm and make efforts to terminate them.
“Wouldn’t that uncertainty have a chilling effect?” Leon asked DOJ attorney Richard Lawson at one point, adding that the order was “like a sword of Damocles hanging over (the firm’s) head.” Leon seemed particularly concerned with a section of the executive order that barred the firm from entering government buildings. “This is a government building.
The Supreme Court is a government building,” Leon pointed out. When Lawson said he couldn’t speak to whether prospective clients of WilmerHale would worry about whether their lawyers could enter courthouses, the judge appeared incredulous. “Have you practiced law? Have you had clients?” he asked.
“Then use your common sense.” Earlier this month, a third judge in the courthouse issued an order temporarily blocking another executive order from Trump that went after the law firm Perkins Coie. In court on Friday, Clement told Leon that those three cases “are some of the most important cases for the First Amendment and for the rule of law,” adding later that barring certain law firms “is not the tradition in our country.
” “If lawyers are looking over their shoulder to decide if they should take the case or if they do, deciding ‘How do I argue this? Do I walk on eggshells ...
or defend my client zealously?’” Clement said. This story is breaking and will be updated..
