A federal judge appointed by former President George W. Bush signaled Monday that he may go further than any court yet in striking down President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at major law firms, according to a report in All Rise News.
Portions of Trump’s orders targeting the law firms Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey have already been blocked by four separate federal judges, who all found the actions likely unconstitutional. While none have struck down Trump’s orders entirely, U.S. District Judge John Bates appeared ready to rule against the surviving elements, the publication said.
At a hearing Monday, Bates sharply criticized the Justice Department’s attempts to defend the restrictions.
“Give me a break!” Bates told DOJ attorneys as they attempted to justify limiting Jenner & Block employees’ access to federal buildings, as reported by All Rise News. The government argued the restrictions were necessary to combat discrimination, it added.
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Jenner’s attorney piled onto the criticism as they compared the DOJ’s reasoning to “a game of Twister, verbal gymnastics, to justify this architecture of retaliation based on speech.”
“It’s not just the firms’ rights that are under attack,” according to the report. The ramifications of Trump’s unprecedented orders spurred “more than 2,000 groups and individuals" to support the law firms in Trump's crosshairs in "friend-of-the-court briefs, and conservative legal icons like Paul Clement have opposed Trump’s orders.”
Arguing on behalf of WilmerHale last week, Clement bluntly said, “These orders are a direct and lethal threat to the independent bar."
During that hearing, Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, another appointee of George W. Bush, left little doubt of how he viewed the matter: “It's retaliatory. There's no question in my mind," according to All Rise News.