U.S. District Judge John Bates permanently barred the Trump administration from enforcing a March executive order targeting the law firm Jenner & Block.
“This case arises from one of a series of executive orders targeting law firms that, in one way or another, did not bow to the current presidential administration’s political orthodoxy,” Bates wrote. “Like the others in the series, this order — which takes aim at the global law firm Jenner & Block — makes no bones about why it chose its target: it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed.”
The decision from the Republican-appointed judge is the latest legal setback for the Trump administration’s effort to retaliate against what it says are law firms that engaged in “lawfare.”
Trump issued his executive order targeting Jenner & Block in March, and the firm quickly sued, arguing the order is part of an effort to “coerce law firms and lawyers into renouncing the Administration’s critics and ceasing certain representations adverse to the government.”
Bates wrote that Trump’s order “is doubly violative of the Constitution” because it not only targets a law firm because of its legal work but also sends a broader message to any lawyer who has challenged “government-imposed orthodoxy.”
“This order, like the others, seeks to chill legal representation the administration doesn’’tlike, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers,” he wrote.
-ABC News’ Peter Charalambous
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