A federal judge delivered a beatdown to the Trump administration, in support of WilmerHale. Here's how.
Welch would be pleased to see the beatdown that Judge Richard Leon delivered against the administration last week — and not just because Leon ruled in favor of Welch's old firm. Welch would also appreciate the emphatic tone of Leon's message, with more than 20 exclamation points across a 73-page order.
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It's
and its roughly 2,400
employees that hangs in the balance. The fundamentals of the country's entire legal system could be at risk.
In recent months, President Trump issued several executive orders threatening prominent law firms because of their work on behalf of immigrants and elections reform, or for hiring a lawyer or two deemed an enemy by the president, among other supposed sins. In
Trump's threats
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Nine Big Law firms quickly caved, settling with Trump and agreeing to provide legal services to causes blessed by the president, worth around $1 billion in total.
Dozens more have stayed quiet, on the sidelines.
But four firms in Trump's crosshairs chose to fight. And it has not gone well for the president. With Leon's vigorous torpedoing of Trump's executive order against WilmerHale on the books, the administration's record is now 0-3 against Big Law in the courts — with the fate of
Here are a few things to know about Judge Leon. He often wears a bow tie, a sartorial choice much less common now than in Welch's day. Leon is a Natick native, went to college
appointed him to the bench. He has a bit of a reputation for
He did not disappoint, on any of these counts, with his May 27 decision. Right at the outset, Leon explained why he was striking down the entirety of Trump's WilmerHale order as unconstitutional.
'The cornerstone of the American system of justice is an independent judiciary and an independent bar willing to tackle unpopular cases,' Leon wrote. 'Indeed, to rule otherwise would be unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the Founding Fathers!'
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On the administration's assertion that WilmerHale's financial injuries are speculative in nature, Leon said: 'Please — that dog won't hunt!" On whether Trump's order improperly infringes on WilmerHale's freedom of speech: 'The Order goes on to impose a kitchen sink of
severe
sanctions on WilmerHale for this protected conduct!' And on whether the order violates the rights of WilmerHale clients to pick their counsel: 'The intended and actual effect of the Order's sanctions is to drive away clients from WilmerHale!'
Then there was the tasty footnote on page 14, in which Leon describes Trump's March 27 executive order against WilmerHale as akin to a gumbo, in which all the ingredients should be considered together as one dish. 'As explained in this Memorandum Opinion,' Leon concludes, 'this gumbo gives the court heartburn.'
Tell us how you really feel, Judge Leon!
Both sides were far more subdued when asked for comment. After all, Leon's decision could still be appealed. WilmerHale offered a brief statement, sans exclamation points, saying the decision 'strongly affirms our foundational constitutional rights and those of our clients. We remain proud to defend our firm, our people, and our clients.'
Meanwhile, Trump is a fan of explanation points, judging by his social media posts. But White House spokesman Harrison Fields opted against using one. Instead, he focused on one aspect of the case involving Trump's attempt to revoke WilmerHale's security clearances: 'The decision to grant any individual access to this nation's secrets is a sensitive judgment call entrusted to the President. Weighing these factors and implementing such decisions are core executive powers, and reviewing the President's clearance decisions falls well outside the judiciary's authority.'
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As president of the Mass. Bar Association, Victoria Santoro has been rallying the state's law groups to protest Trump's executive-order barrage. She notes that judges of all political backgrounds and jurisdictions have blocked a wide range of Trump's executive orders, not just those involving the legal profession. To Santoro, the trend speaks to Trump's excessive and unconstitutional use of EOs.
But will law firms feel safe from future Trump attacks, free to take on clients and causes unpopular with the president, or a lawyer with ties to his enemies? Maybe not.
Boston College law professor Cheryl Bratt calls Leon's decision necessary, but she's not sure if it's sufficient. Translation: It will probably take more than one judge's opinion, or even three, to give law firms the comfort to know they won't end up on Trump's hit list. The reluctance is understandable. The harm is real: Some clients were already starting to reconsider WilmerHale, for example, and two of its lawyers had their security clearances suspended.
Bratt incorporated the Trump vs. Big Law saga into her classes this spring; one way to talk about the fundamental rights provided by the Constitution is to show how they can get threatened in real time.
As a WilmerHale alum, Bratt paid particular attention. The legacy of Joseph Welch looms large there; she was told about Welch's stand against McCarthyism during her employee orientation, and the firm's website recounts that history with pride. WilmerHale's current fight, led by
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As granddaughter Nancy Welch watches the WilmerHale-Trump fight play out from her Maryland home, she is reminded of a lesson that Welch passed along to her family: He saw the rule of law, delivered fairly and without favor, as the single most powerful antidote to fear. It was a fearful time in the 1950s for the country, she said in an email, like it is right now.
It's a safe bet Joseph Welch would be proud to read Leon's decision — and so, one imagines, would the Founding Fathers!
Jon Chesto can be reached at
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$1.7 trillion sits in lost and forgotten 401(k) accounts. Is one of them yours?
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The lost and found site is 'still trying to reach scale with a lot of providers' and not yet comprehensive, said Rita Assaf, vice president of retirement savings at Fidelity. But it's another convenient, one-stop destination for finding retirement funds in your name. Third, visit Missing Money, a clearinghouse of unclaimed property held by U.S. states and Canadian provinces. Another one-stop site, Missing Money can direct users to all sorts of unclaimed property, including retirement accounts. 'It's been around for a few years, but it's not as widely known as it should be,' said John of AARP. Finding a lost 401(k): Some effort required The steps above should provide a good sense of potential unclaimed retirement funds in your name. The next moves might take a bit more time. Search your employment records. Look for old retirement plan statements, in electronic or paper form. Alternately, seek out old pay stubs and W-2 forms, and look for contributions to retirement plans. 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The speech was a chance for the second Trump administration, and a new face like Hegseth, to lay bare their intentions for the Asia Pacific, a region still reeling from some of the White House's steepest tariffs. Hegseth's slot was on Saturday morning. In the first few sessions, the ballroom was so packed that staffers, colonels, and majors were stuck outside watching giant displays while their bosses sat within. Some filtered into nearby viewing rooms, where aides scribbled furiously on notebooks and whispered to each other. Hegseth spent much of his 35-minute address praising President Donald Trump and slamming Beijing, naming China over two dozen times. "It has to be clear to all that Beijing is credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific," Hegseth told the audience. Beijing was given an opening to strike back during a Q&A, but it threw a soft punch, asking Hegseth a rhetorical question about regional alliances. 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Susannah Patton, the director of the Southeast Asia Program from Adelaide's Lowy Institute, described it to me as "gladiatorial." "It's an opportunity missed," said Andrew Yang, a former national defense minister for Taiwan. With Dong not showing up, the Dialogue's organizers discreetly deleted Beijing's plenary from the schedule. Hu instead spoke at a smaller panel just before dinner on Saturday. Most of Beijing's defense was left to scholars at the event. "China's forces have always been strengthening quickly, that is a fact," Da Wei, the director of Tsinghua University's Center for International Security and Strategy, said of Hegseth's accusation that China's military build-up signaled an intention for war. The Chinese foreign ministry released a statement at midnight condemning Hegseth's speech. "The remarks were filled with provocations and intended to sow division," it said. Though attendees waited for a potential US-China clash, the weekend's dramatic moment came after Hegseth flew home. The Philippine defense chief, Gilberto Teodoro, was speaking at Sunday morning's plenary when he fielded barbed questions from two Chinese senior colonels. The officers had publicly suggested that the Philippines could become, or already was, an American proxy state. "If the proxy war in Europe needs to be ended, are you concerned that a proxy war in Asia might be launched?" Zhang asked. Distracted aides looked up from their phones. China was taking a swing. Teodoro dropped the diplomacy in his answer. "Thank you for the propaganda spiels disguised as questions," he said. The ballroom laughed and applauded. It was a rare moment of frankness amid the slow waltz of the last two days, where everyone, from lieutenant to minister, had danced around each other to the tune of defense-speak alliance acronyms and diplomatic buzzwords. By early Sunday afternoon, when the Dialogue closed, many of the senior ministers and CEOs had already departed the Shangri-La for their next big appointment. Aides and officers traded their suits and dress uniforms for cargo shorts and sandals, speeding off in cabs to explore the city. There was an air of disappointment among some of the journalists and analysts emptying out of the Shang. Dong's absence and the lack of a Chinese meeting with Hegseth, they said, had robbed much of the wind from the Dialogue's sails. Johnson, the veteran defense journalist, wrote me a message before his flight back to Warsaw, telling me about what had changed in the last 13 years. He remembered the late Sen. John McCain, whom he said would attend the Dialogue and hold impromptu press conferences, speaking candidly to reporters about big-ticket issues like Teodoro had on Sunday morning. At the forum, Johnson said, no one had stepped in to fill McCain's shoes. "His presence is sorely missed and even more sorely needed in these times," Johnson said. Read the original article on Business Insider
