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Justice Department Denounces Federal Judges in Fight Against Law Firms
The Trump administration had signaled earlier this week that it was ready to abandon four executive orders seeking to punish law firms, but abruptly reversed course the next day.
Chris Cameron and Jonah E. Bromwich
Chris Cameron reported from Washington and Jonah E. Bromwich from New York.
The Department of Justice on Friday attacked the federal judiciary, accusing judges who ruled against the Trump administration of undermining President Trump’s authority while continuing to fight a case that it had signaled it was ready to abandon earlier this week.
Its attack came in a court filing in its appeal of four district court rulings that had struck down Mr. Trump’s executive ordersattempting to bar prominent law firms from government business.
“Courts cannot tell the president what to say,” the 97-page legal brief began, adding that four federal judges had “bent over backwards” to rule against Mr. Trump and were “encroaching on the constitutional power of the president,” in what the document described as “a grave error for the district courts.”
The blistering court filing came as the Trump administration encounters heightened scrutiny from district courts across the country. Its officials have grown ever more bellicose, including in criticizing the Supreme Court after it ruled against Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
It was also the latest turn in the dizzying saga of the executive orders, which sought to punish law firms for their perceived connections with Mr. Trump’s political enemies. The orders targeting law firms are one of Mr. Trump’s most audacious — and, the district courts found, unconstitutional — attempts at subduing potentially powerful adversaries, and the new twists this week created uncertainty in a legal profession already roiled by the orders.
The tone and language of the brief were remarkable as Justice Department lawyers opened an argument to federal appeals court judges by attacking those judges’ lower court colleagues.
Its ferocity came as a surprise given that, earlier this week, the Justice Department indicated that it was ready to abandon the case entirely. On Monday, it filed a motion with the D.C. court, asking it to dismiss the case.
But the next day, after the department’s decision to leave the appeal behind had received extensive news coverage, it reversed course. The Justice Department then asked the judges for permission to withdraw the previous day’s motion, after some of the country’s biggest law firms thought they had put to rest a key part of the president’s sweeping retribution campaign.
It was not immediately clear what had prompted the about-face, but Mr. Trump and other top administration officials have often bristled at the perception that they have backed down from a public fight. In one high-profile example, the federal government initially acknowledged in court that it had made a mistake last year in deporting a Salvadoran man living in Maryland, only for high-level officials to mount an effort to keep him out of the country.
Four firms — Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey — fought the executive orders targeting them, quickly receiving favorable rulings from the district court judges. Nine others struck deals to avoid punishment from the government, most notably Paul Weiss, drawing criticism.
Though the government had initially signaled to the law firms that it would ask for a weeklong extension, it did not ultimately do so..
The brief’s bellicose language was most notable in its opening pages, and the Justice Department’s lawyers soon turned to more conventional legal arguments. But even those were notable, as when the department said that Mr. Trump’s language targeting the firms was “a textbook example of government speech.”
Chris Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and the Trump administration.
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in the New York region for The Times. He is focused on political influence and its effect on the rule of law in the area's federal and state courts.
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