District judge rules Trump's executive order against Perkins Coie law firm "unconstitutional"

A district judge ruled that the executive order of Donald Trump against the law firm Perkins Coie is "unconstitutional." Last March 6, the president barred the firm's lawyers from government buildings, revoked its security clearances, and demanded a full review of its government contracts. The law firm had represented Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016 to produce the Steele Dossier, a report with allegations of alleged ties between Trump and Russia that were never proven.

The ruling came from the pen of Beryl Howell, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia who was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2014. According to the judge, the executive order signed by the president violates at least three constitutional amendments.

"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,” Judge Howell wrote in a 102-page ruling.

"By its terms, this Order stigmatizes and penalizes a particular law firm and its employees—from its partners to its associate attorneys, secretaries, and mailroom attendants—due to the Firm’s representation, both in the past and currently, of clients pursuing claims and taking positions with which the current President disagrees, as well as the Firm’s own speech," Howell added.

With this ruling, Perkins Coie joined a small group of firms that won court victories against the president's executive orders. Others, meanwhile, opted to settle directly with the Trump Administration, including Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.