Law firm targeted by Trump executive order sues his administration

By Mike Scarcella

(Reuters) -U.S. law firm Perkins Coie sued President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday, claiming Trump illegally retaliated against the firm over its work for his former opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, and its policies promoting diversity and inclusion.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., asked a U.S. judge to declare Trump’s March 6 executive order unlawful and to bar its enforcement.

“Perkins Coie’s ability to represent the interests of its clients — and its ability to operate as a legal-services business at all — are under direct and imminent threat” by the administration’s order, the lawsuit said.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

Trump, a Republican, directed federal agencies in his order to review any contracts between the firm and the government, and to temporarily suspend security clearances that lawyers at the firm use to access and handle some sensitive information.

The order also said agencies should consider limiting Perkins Coie lawyers’ access to government buildings and officials and ending any contractual work with the firm’s clients.

Seattle-founded Perkins Coie said in its lawsuit that at least seven of its clients, including a major government contractor, had withdrawn legal work from the firm due to the executive order.

The lawsuit marked an escalation of a growing feud between Trump and law firms that he has accused of being aligned against his administration’s interests.

Trump in February issued a similar but narrower order against law firm Covington & Burling, which is representing the special counsel who led now-dismissed criminal prosecutions of Trump over his handling of classified information and his effort to reverse his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Perkins Coie and Covington are among more than a dozen prominent law firms representing clients in lawsuits challenging Trump administration policies and priorities, including its efforts to curtail immigration, agency grants and transgender rights.

Trump’s order against Perkins Coie criticized the firm over its work for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run against Trump.

Perkins Coie has long been criticized by some on the American right over its work with the Washington research firm Fusion GPS. Fusion paid a former British spy’s company to assemble a dossier outlining alleged Russian financial and personal links to Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

Trump has denied the claims in the dossier, and he has more broadly disputed that his campaign then had any ties to Russia.

Perkins Coie has also faced criticism over the work of one of its former partners, Michael Sussmann, who advised the 2016 Clinton presidential campaign.

Sussmann was acquitted in 2022 at trial on a charge that he lied to the FBI when he met with the bureau in 2016 to share a tip about a possible link between Trump’s business and a Russian bank.

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario, Rod Nickel and Howard Goller)