Latest news with #JennerBlock
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Law firms targeted by Trump are on a winning streak against him
Federal courts have handed a series of resounding victories to the law firms fighting back against President Trump's targeted executive orders, a sharp rebuke of his retribution campaign against them. Three judges, appointed by presidents of both political parties, forcefully struck down orders this month aimed at limiting government contracts and access for Big Law firms Perkins Coie, WilmerHale and Jenner & Block. The early wins underscore the legal system's ability to withstand the Trump administration's pressure test, and have led some in the legal community to take shots at other elite firms that struck deals with Trump to avoid punishments. 'This is a moment for courage, not capitulation,' said Harold Hongju Koh, a Yale Law School professor who authored papers calling Trump's orders retaliatory and the law firm deals unenforceable. 'The firms that showed courage are being vindicated, and the ones who have capitulated have another chance to show courage,' he continued. 'So, what are they going to do?' The judges ruling in favor of the law firms all deemed the administration's actions as illegal. Still, that might not make firms that chose to strike deals with Trump regret their actions. Those firms likely anticipated they could win in court, but decided it was in their better business interests to settle with Trump, said Rachel Cohen, a lawyer who made waves after she offered a conditional resignation from Skadden contingent on whether leadership came up with 'a satisfactory response to the current moment.' Skadden ended up reaching a deal with the Trump administration, and Cohen no longer works there. Cohen argued Trump has effectively won in getting a number of law firms to offer it concessions even though the administration had a weak case in court. 'The very fact that we're saying, 'What does it mean that the Trump administration has lost all of these legal battles' shows that they kind of won, right?' Cohen told The Hill. The three firms that won in court all have ties to people who are political opponents of Trump or who are otherwise seen as the president as enemies. Perkins Coie had long drawn Trump's ire for advising Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign and working with an opposition research firm tied to the discredited Steele dossier. WilmerHale had employed special counsel Robert Mueller before and after his stint investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, while Jenner & Block previously employed Andrew Weissmann, a prominent Trump critic and legal pundit who worked on Mueller's probe. A fourth firm fighting back, Susman Godfrey, is awaiting a ruling on a Trump executive order targeting it for punishment. The firm helped Dominion Voting Systems secure a multimillion-dollar settlement against Fox News after the 2020 election. The Trump administration has argued that it's within the president's discretion to decide who to trust with the nation's secrets, a reference to its decision to revoke the security clearances of the firms' employees. The orders were designed to assuage Trump's concerns about the law firms, the government has said. But judges haven't bought it. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, said Tuesday in his ruling for WilmerHale that the president's orders against several of the nation's top law firms constituted a direct challenge to the independent judiciary and bar that are the 'cornerstone' of America's justice system. To let the orders stand would be 'unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the Founding Fathers,' the judge wrote in a 73-page opinion spattered with exclamation points. Before that, U.S. District Judge John Bates, another Bush appointee, slammed Trump's order against Jenner & Block as an effort to 'chill legal representation the administration doesn't like,' while U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, appointed by former President Obama, said Trump's order against Perkins Coie 'draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.'' Trump's deal with Paul, Weiss was an earthquake in the legal world, and signaled that a number of powerful firms would be willing to do deals with Trump out of economic prudence. Trump revoked the executive order targeting Paul, Weiss after it agreed to provide $40 million in free legal services to support administration initiatives and other perks. 'As soon as Paul, Weiss made their deal, it was very clear to me that the industry wasn't going to act collectively and that they were going to splinter,' Cohen said. Soon after, Skadden struck its own deal with the president, agreeing to provide at least $100 million in pro bono legal services 'during the Trump administration and beyond.' Trump had not signed an order aimed at Skadden, though the administration signaled that additional law firms could come under fire. At least seven other firms entered agreements with Trump to provide tens of millions of dollars in pro bono work, despite no executive orders issued against them. 'There is a different motivation beyond 'Would I be able to win in court?' that is behind why these deals were entered into in the first place,' said Cohen. But Koh, the law professor, argued that it's not too late for the other firms to change course. In his essay in the law and policy journal Just Security, he contended that the agreements are unenforceable contracts. He offered a hypothetical: If you enter a contract to give someone a million dollars because they put a gun to your head, but then a court says it was illegal to put a gun to your head, would you still pay the million dollars? 'Right now, they are prisoners of handcuffs of their own making,' Koh said of the law firms. 'It's all in their mind — that's what these cases tell you. 'Whatever was their explanation for why they caved the first time, those justifications are gone,' he continued. 'They should start doing the right thing now; they have a second chance to do the right thing, and they should take it.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ex-Prosecutor Says This Ruling Just Helped Americans 'Connect The Dots' On Trump
Ex-prosecutor Andrew Weissmann on Friday reacted to a federal judge striking down President Donald Trump's executive order targeting law firm Jenner & Block because the order violated the First Amendment. 'It allows people to connect the dots,' said Weissmann, who was previously employed by the law firm and served as a prosecutor on special counsel Robert Mueller's team as it investigated the 2016 Trump campaign's ties to Russia. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates — a George W. Bush appointee — wrote in his ruling that Trump's order 'makes no bones about why it chose its target,' adding that 'it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed.' Friday's ruling marks the second time in a matter of weeks that a judge has foiled Trump's attempts to retaliate against a major law firm whose work he's not a fan of. Severallaw firms have opted to kiss the president's ring by striking deals with him in hopes of avoiding similar executive orders targeting them, leading a number of law associatesas well as top partners to abandon ship as a result. Weissmann — a legal pundit and a notable critic of the president — told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace that he loves Bates' ruling while tying the decision to the administration's battle with Harvard University. A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from barring the university's enrollment of foreign students. 'And what is the main ground? First Amendment violation,' said Weissmann of the Harvard ruling. 'And so you're going to see this over and over again.' He stressed that it's 'very important' for Americans not to see the Trump administration's retaliatory acts as 'isolated' events. 'This is sort of remarkable,' he said. 'The United States government repeatedly being found to have violated the First Amendment in really significant ways — attacking a major firm, a series of major law firms and Harvard University.' H/T: Raw Story Trade War Trump Rages: Trump Threatens 50% Tariffs On EU And 25% Penalties On Smart Phones Judge Slams Trump Administration's Retaliation, Blocks Executive Order Against Major Law Firm GOP Tax Bill Touts 'Trump Accounts' Giving $1000 To Newborns — But Experts Say It Wouldn't Do Much For Parents
Wall Street Journal
23-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Trump's Campaign Against Elite Law Firms Suffers Another Defeat in Court
In a matter of weeks, President Trump's campaign against the legal industry racked up commitments from law firms to provide some $1 billion in pro bono work for causes favored by the White House. In court, the effort has met a much different fate: One gut punch after another. The latest blow landed Friday, when a federal judge in Washington struck down Trump's executive order against the law firm Jenner & Block. The ruling from U.S. District Judge John Bates extended a string of defeats the administration has suffered against law firms that have challenged executive orders targeting their businesses.
CNA
15-05-2025
- Business
- CNA
US judge in Huawei criminal case questions Trump order against law firm
The judge overseeing the U.S. criminal case against Chinese telecom Huawei said at a hearing that President Donald Trump's executive order stripping security clearances from lawyers at Jenner & Block could be a hurdle for the company's defense in the case. U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn questioned prosecutors about the status of Jenner lawyer David Bitkower at the Wednesday hearing, warning that a security clearance would be necessary for the defense team. The judge asked what both sides were doing to address the problem. "It's an issue in terms of the right to counsel, it's an issue in terms of trying the case," Donnelly said. "We've got a trial scheduled for January, and if you've got to get people cleared, I think it's an issue." A Justice Department lawyer said the government would work to facilitate a security clearance for a different member of Huawei's defense team. Later on Wednesday, a lawyer representing Jenner in its lawsuit in Washington, D.C., seeking to strike down the Trump executive order said the clearance of one of the firm's attorneys had been suspended. The letter did not name the lawyer. Jenner is among four law firms targeted by Trump's executive orders, based on their ties to lawyers or cases that the president said did not align with his administration's priorities. The other three firms are WilmerHale, Perkins Coie and Susman Godfrey. A judge in Washington is poised to rule soon in Jenner's lawsuit seeking to permanently block Trump's order against it. The Jenner filing and the exchange in the Huawei case showed the continued effects of Trump's executive orders against prominent law firms, even as judges have so far sided with the firms in lawsuits challenging the orders. Huawei and Jenner declined to comment. Bitkower did not respond to a request for comment. Other lawyers representing Huawei at law firms Sidley Austin and Steptoe did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Eastern District of New York's federal prosecutor office in Brooklyn did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jenner and Bitkower, a former senior federal prosecutor who is now a leader of the firm's investigations and defense group, are defending Huawei against criminal racketeering and trade secrets claims filed by the Justice Department in a superseding indictment in 2020. Huawei has denied the allegations and argued the government was treating the company "as a prosecutorial target in search of a crime." Trump's executive orders against Jenner, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie and Susman Godfrey sought to suspend security clearances held by lawyers at the firms, restrict their access to government officials and cancel federal contracts held by their clients. Jenner in a court filing on April 8 said that Trump's order "suspends all of Jenner's security clearances, including those required for the representation of clients in their most sensitive matters." WilmerHale said in a court filing this week that security clearances for two of its lawyers had been suspended after Trump hit the firm with an executive order. The firm did not name the attorneys.
Reuters
15-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
US judge in Huawei criminal case questions Trump order against law firm
May 15 (Reuters) - The judge overseeing the U.S. criminal case against Chinese telecom Huawei said at a hearing that President Donald Trump's executive order stripping security clearances from lawyers at Jenner & Block could be a hurdle for the company's defense in the case. U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn questioned prosecutors about the status of Jenner lawyer David Bitkower at the Wednesday hearing, warning that a security clearance would be necessary for the defense team. The judge asked what both sides were doing to address the problem. "It's an issue in terms of the right to counsel, it's an issue in terms of trying the case," Donnelly said. "We've got a trial scheduled for January, and if you've got to get people cleared, I think it's an issue." A Justice Department lawyer said the government would work to facilitate a security clearance for a different member of Huawei's defense team. Later on Wednesday, a lawyer representing Jenner in its lawsuit in Washington, D.C., seeking to strike down the Trump executive order said the clearance of one of the firm's attorneys had been suspended. The letter, opens new tab did not name the lawyer. Jenner is among four law firms targeted by Trump's executive orders, based on their ties to lawyers or cases that the president said did not align with his administration's priorities. The other three firms are WilmerHale, Perkins Coie and Susman Godfrey. A judge in Washington is poised to rule soon in Jenner's lawsuit seeking to permanently block Trump's order against it. The Jenner filing and the exchange in the Huawei case showed the continued effects of Trump's executive orders against prominent law firms, even as judges have so far sided with the firms in lawsuits challenging the orders. Huawei and Jenner declined to comment. Bitkower did not respond to a request for comment. Other lawyers representing Huawei at law firms Sidley Austin and Steptoe did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Eastern District of New York's federal prosecutor office in Brooklyn did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jenner and Bitkower, a former senior federal prosecutor who is now a leader of the firm's investigations and defense group, are defending Huawei against criminal racketeering and trade secrets claims filed by the Justice Department in a superseding indictment in 2020. Huawei has denied the allegations and argued the government was treating the company, opens new tab "as a prosecutorial target in search of a crime." Trump's executive orders against Jenner, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie and Susman Godfrey sought to suspend security clearances held by lawyers at the firms, restrict their access to government officials and cancel federal contracts held by their clients. Jenner in a court filing on April 8 said that Trump's order "suspends all of Jenner's security clearances, including those required for the representation of clients in their most sensitive matters." WilmerHale said in a court filing this week, opens new tab that security clearances for two of its lawyers had been suspended after Trump hit the firm with an executive order. The firm did not name the attorneys.
