Trump sues law firm over ‘egregious and unlawful' diversity policies
Donald Trump has said he is suing a law firm that helped Hilary Clinton's 2016 election campaign acquire dossier of claims about his alleged links to Russia.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, the US president vowed to sue Seattle law firm Perkins Coie for 'egregious and unlawful acts', which he attributed to an unnamed member of the firm.
Perkins Coie is one of America's largest law firms and was previously targeted by Mr Trump over its links to Ms Clinton's 2016 campaign.
The law firm paid more than $1m to an investigations firm for a dossier compiled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele on Mr Trump.
The 35-page report, which came to be called the Steele Dossier, alleged Russia helped Trump win the 2016 elections, including by hacking the Democratic Party's emails and leaking them to WikiLeaks.
Perkins Coie was contacted for comment.
The president also hit out at US District Judge Beryl Howell, who Mr Trump said had been assigned to the Perkins Coie case.
He said: 'The Judge assigned to this case is Beryl Howell, an Obama appointment, and a highly biased and unfair disaster. She ruled against me in the past, in a shocking display of sick judicial temperament, on a case that ended up working out very well for me, on appeal.'
Ms Howell previously oversaw Robert Mueller's investigation into claims Russia interfered in the 2016 elections. The Washington DC judge separately condemned Mr Trump's decision to pardon his supporters who participated in the January 6 riots at the Capitol.
Mr Trump's post said: 'I could have a 100pc perfect case and she would angrily rule against me. It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome, and she's got a bad case of it. To put it nicely, Beryl Howell is an unmitigated train wreck. NO JUSTICE!!!'
The post on Truth Social comes just weeks after the president signed an executive order against Perkins Coie that effectively banned the law firm from working for America's federal government.
The order, which was signed into law on March 6, accused Perkins Coie of 'undermining democratic elections' by acquiring the 'false' dossier on behalf of Ms Clinton's campaign from investigations firm Fusion GPS.
Mr Trump also accused Perkins Coie of having worked to 'judicially overturn popular, necessary, and democratically enacted election laws,' on behalf of activists including hedge fund billionaire George Soros.
The executive order separately claimed Perkins Coie 'racially discriminates' against its own staff through its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, which include 'race-based and sex-based' quotas.
Perkins Coie has filed a legal challenge to Trump's order, with a spokesman for the law firm saying the edict 'violates core constitutional protections, including the rights to free speech and due process'.
A federal judge subsequently issued a temporary block on vast swathes of the order.
The president's order against Perkins Coie marked the start of a wider campaign against some of America's biggest law firms that has now seen the Trump administration sign executive orders against five major firms including Wilmer Hale and Jenner & Block.
Mr Trump had earlier signed a memorandum against lawyers at Washington DC law firm Covington & Burling, which directed federal government agencies to suspend the security clearances of lawyers including Peter Koski, one of its former partners.
Top law firms including Paul Weiss and A&O Shearman have, meanwhile, struck deals with Trump that will see them provide free work for his administration to avoid being hit with an executive order.
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