In a whiplash-inducing move, the Justice Department is now back to defending President Trump's sanctions on several major law firms—less than a day after saying it would walk away from the fight. In a new filing Tuesday, government lawyers told the federal appeals court in Washington they plan to pursue the cases after all, arguing the court hadn't yet acted on their earlier request to dismiss them and that the administration has discretion to change course, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The about-face centers on four rulings that blocked Trump's executive orders targeting Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie, and Susman Godfrey. Those orders sought to yank security clearances, restrict access to federal buildings, and cut off government contracts for the firms and their clients—measures the firms said could severely damage their business. Judges from across the ideological spectrum had concluded the moves were unconstitutional retaliation.
- In the WilmerHale case, a federal judge blasted the administration's "absurd" arguments. In the Jenner & Block case, another judge wrote that Trump's executive order "seeks to chill legal representation the administration doesn't like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers."
The firms are now urging the court to reject DOJ's reversal, calling it an "unexplained request to withdraw yesterday's voluntary dismissal, to which all parties had agreed." Nine other big firms targeted by Trump previously avoided similar sanctions by agreeing to nearly $1 billion in pro bono work on administration-backed causes. There has been speculation that the initial move to dismiss the cases against the four firms that stood up to the administration was made because the administration was concerned that a court loss would lead to the deals with the nine other firms being declared invalid, the New York Times reports.
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