Bulwark Takes - MAJOR Trump Loss! Judge Rules Order on Law Firms UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Episode Date: May 3, 2025

Bulwark Managing Editor Sam Stein breaks down a major legal ruling from Judge Beryl Howell that delivered a sharp rebuke to Donald Trump’s attempts to punish law firms critical of his administration. With a 102-page ruling, Judge Howell permanently blocked a Trump-era executive order that targeted prominent firms like Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss—accusing the order of violating First and Fifth Amendment rights.

Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bulwark, joining you on Saturday. Some screaming kids behind me, so apologies for that in advance. We're going to be talking about a pretty significant decision from Judge Beryl Howell of the Federal District Court of Washington, D.C. Happened last night, overnight, basically, a 102-page ruling. It involved Trump's attacks on big law firms, and it was a decidedly big smackdown on the administration. Before we get to that, subscribe to the feed. We appreciate all your help in growing our channel. You get stuff like this, me working on a Saturday with crazy kids behind me.

All right, so basically, I just want to talk about this because this has been one of the bigger storylines if you just care about the issue of institutional acquiescence to Trumpism. So the background here is that fairly early on in his administration, Donald Trump made clear that he was going to go after law firms that he viewed as adversarial to him. And the first big firms were Paul Weiss and Perkins Coie. Perkins Coie is one of the big DC firms. Paul Weiss is an institution and they chose kind of divergent paths. Paul Weiss decided that it was going to go and craft a settlement with Trump. They ended up doing so. I think they gave him about $40 million in free pro bono services on causes that they agreed to. Perkins Coie decided,

no, they're going to fight it. And they became one of four firms that have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the executive orders that Trump has issued against firms. Now, in all told, Trump's gone after almost a dozen or so firms, maybe more, a little bit less. I don't have the exact number. I know that at least nine of those firms have cut deals with Trump, like Paul Weiss. But really, the first one was Paul Weiss that set the sort of tone for capitulation. And the first one who set the tone for defiance was Perkins Coie. This was no small matter. This was a huge deal, in fact, in legal circles. Now, before we get into the rest of the drama, I think it's important to note the executive orders that Trump was threatening or did file against these firms. They did a couple of things. One was they deprived lawyers with those firms of security clearances. They said

those lawyers could not get granted access to government buildings. And they also threatened contractors, government contractors saying you should not work with these firms. We're going to get back to this. But the idea that lawyers would be denied security clearances in particular plays a really interesting role in why Trump ended up losing this case. Anyway, so Trump goes off on these firms. Some of them acquiesce, like Paul Weiss. Some of them pay way more than Paul Weiss did, $100 million settlements. In fact, Trump's up to about $1 billion in pro bono services at this juncture. But in the interim, four suits have been sort of percolating through the legal system. Because Perkins Coie was the first one targeted, their suit seemed to be the first one that was considered. And last night we got our answer about how at

least this suit was going to play out. I'm going to read from some of what Judge Howell wrote in her ruling. So if my eyes start to drift over, it's just because I'm reading. But it's an extraordinary rebuke. She writes, no American president has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all executive branch agencies. She also wrote, in purpose, and in fact, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase, the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. That's a fairly remarkable line there. She basically said that the actions that Trump was taking was a violation of the First and Fifth Amendments,

and it denied Perkins Coie and other similarly situated firms freedom to, quote, think and speak as they wish and equal protection under the law. That's pretty amazing. And she barred the executive order permanently. And so that order cannot go into effect. This is a remarkable rebuke, both of Trump, but to a degree of Paul Weiss and all the other firms that capitulated. It's kind of an embarrassment for them. We had reported earlier this week in Morning Shots that Paul Weiss and a number of other firms were asked by Democratic lawmakers for details about why they capitulated to Trump, why they decided to make these settlements. And Paul Weiss wrote that they felt that their business faced an existential threat.

Even if they could have won the case, they felt like their business faced an existential threat from this executive order. One, they felt like they wouldn't be able to do business with anyone who was a government contractor. Two, even if they were to fight the suit, they felt that any government contractor would think twice about employing them because they knew that Donald Trump didn't like them. And, you know, maybe that would have affected the way they could have represented their client. And then three, they also said they felt like other firms were trying to poach their lawyers and their clients while they were being targeted by Donald Trump.

So Paul Weiss lays out this case that we had to settle. We would have gone out of business. It was impossible to maneuver in this climate. And maybe so. But now we have fairly concrete evidence that, in fact, they could have prevailed. And maybe they could have figured it out. And maybe they could have kept their clients. And in fact, maybe they could have gained clients because another big thing happened over the past week, which is we got a story from the New York Times about a really big client that actually has swapped firms because of what Donald Trump has done. So that client was Microsoft. Obviously, everyone knows who Microsoft is. Microsoft in mid-Aapril april 22nd to be specifically they uh it appears their firm at

the time uh simpsons and thatcher uh informed the delaware delaware court of chancery that they were being dropped by microsoft uh in a case related to the company's 2023 acquisition of video game giant activision blizzard and instead microsoft was hiring lawyers with a firm called Jenner & Block. Now, full disclosure, my sister works for that firm. Whatever. It has nothing to do with this. Just want to make sure everyone knows this. But Jenner & Block did not succumb to the president's executive orders.

Simpson & Thatcher did. Microsoft argued, I think, that it was better to have a law firm or maybe it was bad. Let's put it this way. Microsoft argued that it was harmful to have a law firm that they felt capitulated Trump because they couldn't be quite certain that that law firm had its best interests at heart. They knew that firm was inclined to bend to Trump's will. And how can a firm who had shown that behavior best represent Microsoft in a case before the government? So it actually worked in the inverse. It backfired on Simpson and Thatcher to make that arrangement. And I am kind of curious

if that's the case at other firms. And if you work for Paul Weiss, if you work for any other firm that settled with Trump, hit us up. We would like to know about it. Two more things. One is Abby Lowell, a very prominent D.C. lawyer who represented, among other people, Jared Kushner and Hunter Biden. He actually – this kind of went under the air. He announced that he's creating a new firm called Lowell & Associates for the express written purposes of providing legal representation and counsel to those individuals who have been, what he says, facing politicized investigations, civil and administrative actions from Trump. So he's trying to generate business by those who are targeted by the president. And that's kind of interesting too. So you're starting to see the free market work where firms that did not acquiesce are getting clients because they

didn't acquiesce. And maybe opportunistically, power lawyers are trying to fill the vacuum of people who are looking for representation because they are being targeted by Trump. All right, I will leave on this. I mentioned the idea of that these firms that were targeted losing their security clearances and why that mattered. And it mattered in this case. One of the arguments that was laid before the judges or has been laid before the judges

in these cases from firms that are fighting these executive orders is that this whole notion that these executive orders were about some national security interest is ridiculous. Not just because it seems very evident that Trump was operating out of political vendetta. In certain cases, these firms represented clients that Trump just despised, right? Or they had lawyers on staff, either currently or formerly, who had been critics of Trump. They said it was bunk because what would happen after a firm settled is that Trump didn't do anything to revoke security clearances. Now, think about this. If you feel like lawyers at that firm represent a national security threat to the extent that you have to revoke their

clearances, then it shouldn't matter whether or not that firm settles with you because they still represent a national security threat. So in the case of Paul Weiss, for instance, Trump said, we're going to revoke your national security clearances. And then Paul Weiss settled and suddenly that was resolved. I guess the national security threat wasn't there after all. And so these lawyers said, look, this is obviously bunk. This is proof that Trump is just operating out of pure politics and that there is not really an urgent need to review security clearances, as stated in the order. And apparently, the judges agreed with that.

Now, I've seen on Twitter, some people say the president should have the right to deny security clearance. It's an executive power. It's under his purview. And I don't dispute that. I don't think anyone disputes that. But I do think that what these lawyers have exposed is that this is not actually about national security. It's about politics. So I'll leave it there. Pretty interesting development in this storyline. I would say arguably a lot of egg on the face of those firms who acquiesced. Perkins Coie looks pretty solid for deciding what it decided to do.

Of course, we're going to have about 18 more twists and turns in the saga, so maybe it all flips eventually. But that's where we stand for now and thank you for letting me walk you through this subscribe to the feed and we will talk later