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Trump goes for the lawyers 

President Donald Trump is going after a pair of major law firms — and attacking the First Amendment in the process.

Trump issued an executive order last Thursday that took aim at Perkins Coie LLP, a law firm that represented Hillary Clinton when she ran against Trump in 2016. Trump’s order aims to strip the firm’s attorneys of their security clearances and asks the government to review all contracts with the firm. 

Trump issued a similar memorandum last month, revoking clearances for some attorneys and canceling government contracts at the law firm of Covington & Burling. The firm is home to former special counsel Jack Smith, who led the prosecution of Trump in cases related to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol and the president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. 

These moves promise to cost the firms revenue, forcing them to end certain client relationships. But the issue is far bigger than harm to a pair of well-off law firms.

Legal experts say that Trump’s executive actions challenge the First Amendment right to free expression — and aim to send a signal to would-be opponents from well beyond just the legal profession. 

This isn’t the administration’s only such challenge; it has also restricted the Associated Press’s access to presidential events and erected coverage barriers for other outlets. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)

The latest executive order seems to be taking aim at specific positions that Perkins Coie has taken on behalf of its clients, its views about employee management policies (including DEI programs), and its association with Democrats. 

The order’s language “absolutely suggests viewpoint discrimination,” which is prohibited by the First Amendment, said Catherine Ross, a professor at George Washington University Law School. 

Other legal experts I spoke to said they agreed. 

One, Laurence Tribe, a constitutional scholar at Harvard Law School, also raised a concern that last week’s executive order could violate the Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel. That right, he said, is “gravely endangered if the executive branch can brand and ostracize a particular group of lawyers and strip them of the security clearances, without which they could not represent a number of the people that the administration either has gone after or has indicated an intention to go after.”

It’s not entirely clear, however, that the orders will be struck down in court, legal scholars told me.

Judges have historically deferred to the president on matters of national security, and that might provide some legal cover to Trump if the issue reaches the Supreme Court, Tribe said. One issue with that defense, however, might be that Thursday’s executive order lacks specific details on any potential national security concerns.  

Trump’s attacks on the First Amendment should worry Trump’s perceived political opponents even beyond the legal or journalistic fields. 

“This is the way dictatorships get going,” Tribe said. “People get afraid to say their piece. ... When that kind of fear casts a chill across the land, the ability of ordinary people to live their lives as they see fit gets undermined.”

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