Judge strikes down Trump order targeting Perkins Coie law firm
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who called the executive order an attack on the American judicial system, said Trump's directive “violates the Constitution and is thus null and void.”
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie in a blistering opinion calling the president’s efforts “an unprecedented attack” on the U.S. judicial system.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee, issued a permanent injunction barring the enforcement of any part of Trump’s order from March, which focused on the firm’s representation of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and its work with billionaire donor George Soros.
“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 wrote.
Then-Commissioner Beryl A. Howell, during the U.S. Sentencing Commission meeting in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 11, 2007.Stephen J Boitano / AP file“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 wrote, referencing John Adams’ decision to represent eight British soldiers charged with murder in connection with the Boston Massacre.
She said Trump’s order “violates the Constitution and is thus null and void.”
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