Judge blocks parts of Trump's order to nix security clearances for law firm linked to Steele Dossier

A federal judge has blocked portions of President Donald Trump’s executive order last week which aimed at “Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie” — the law firm which helped Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign fund British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s debunked anti-Trump dossier.

Judge Beryl Howell issued the temporary restraining order from the bench on Tuesday after hearing arguments from Justice Department chief of staff Chad Mizelle and from Dane Butswinkas of Williams & Connolly, which is representing Perkins Coie. The law firm’s role in generating the Steele Dossier was front-and-center during back-and-forth discussions between the judge and the DOJ, but the judge ultimately ruled that Perkins Coie “has met its burden” for a temporary block of parts of Trump’s order.

The judge, appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, read her decision aloud at the end of the court hearing in a lengthy statement justifying her ruling, which had apparently been written prior to hearing any arguments from the Justice Department seeking to justify the Trump order.

Trump issued his order last week, and Perkins had filed a lawsuit and requested a temporary restraining order on Tuesday, receiving one a day later. Trump's directive repeatedly cited "the national security and other interests of the United States."

Howell ruled that Perkins Coie showed it was likely to succeed on First Amendment and viewpoint discrimination claims, alleging that “Perkins Coie and its employees were targeted” for having “political viewpoints that are unpopular” with the Trump Administration. The judge said that the “national security” concerns by the Trump Administration “cannot mask” that, in her view, Trump’s order aims to “punish the president’s political opponents.” Howell ruled that Trump was motivated by a “personal grievance” and a “personal vendetta” against the firm. Howell said that Perkins Coie also showed it is likely to succeed on a host of other claims it made and contended that Trump’s executive order was essentially an unconstitutional bill of attainder.

Butswinkas successfully sought to stop three sections of the Trump order — the section laying out Trump’s reasoning on why Perkins Coie posed a risk to national security and U.S. interests, the section ordering all federal agencies to review all contracts with Perkins Coie or with entities doing business with Perkins Coie and to terminate those contracts to the maximum extent required by law, and the section limiting Perkins Coie’s access to federal buildings.

The lawyer for Perkins Coie argued that sections related to suspending the security clearances for Perkins Coie and related to Perkins Coie’s allegedly illegal and racially discriminatory policies are “constitutionally invalid” as well, but did not push for a block from the judge on those sections.

“The dishonest and dangerous activity of the law firm Perkins Coie LLP has affected this country for decades,” Trump said in last week’s executive order. “Notably, in 2016 while representing failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, which then manufactured a false ‘dossier’ designed to steal an election.”

Perkins Coie argued on Tuesday that Trump’s executive order aimed to “bully those who advocate points of view that the President perceives as adverse to the views of his Administration.”

Butswinkas said Wednesday he wanted the judge to “invalidate the authority” of Trump to make the conclusions he did. While the judge said that “I can’t decide if they are wrong at this stage,” she did block that section’s enforcement.

The lawyer for Perkins Coie also said that “national security appears to be sprinkled into the executive order” but contended that that was just a “pretext” to retaliate against Perkins Coie. The lawyer also said that “Sussmann was indicted and acquitted” and that “President Trump as a private citizen sued Perkins Coie and lost.”

Marc Elias, a former Perkins Coie lawyer who served as general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, played a key role in the funding and spreading Steele’s discredited dossier, which was used to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against a former member of the Trump campaign. John Durham’s special counsel inquiry further undercut the dossier’s credibility and resulted in indictments against Steele’s primary source, Igor Danchenko, as well as against Elias’s former Perkins Coie law partner, Michael Sussmann, with whom Elias worked closely in 2016.

Perkins Coie responded to Trump’s executive order claims in part by pointing out that Trump’s RICO lawsuit against Steele, Clinton, Perkins Coie, and others was dismissed by a district court in 2022. The law firm’s defense against Sussmann’s actions included pointing out that Sussmann was also acquitted at trial that year and is now at a different firm.

Howell praised Perkins Coie as a “very well-respected and prominent law firm” at the start of the hearing and told Butswinkas that “I see why you’re so popular” after he made his impassioned arguments. The judge seemed skeptical throughout her questioning of the Justice Department on Wednesday.

The DOJ lawyer contended that the Steele Dossier “goes to the heart of national security” and that the claims of collusion between Trump and Russia “were proven to be false” as he cited John Durham’s special counsel investigation.

Howell cut him off, retorting, “I’ve also read the Mueller report… I’m not going to get into a debate about it.” The judge said that Mizelle could not be saying that there were zero people involved in the 2016 Trump campaign who had any connection with Russia. She said that the Perkins Coie lawyers involved with Fusion GPS “are long gone from Perkins Coie” and seemed to dismiss the collusion saga as “something that happened a decade ago.”

Mizelle soon again brought up Fusion GPS and “false information related to Russia” which he argued tied to “national security” concerns about Perkins Coie, which he dubbed a “national security risk.”

Howell said of Trump: “He was upset about that in 2016… He keeps bringing it up. He doesn’t let any of us forget about Fusion GPS. He doesn’t let us forget about any of this. He really has a bee in his bonnet.”

Durham’s report concluded that “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.” The special counsel noted that “the FBI ignored the fact that at no time before, during, or after Crossfire Hurricane were investigators able to corroborate a single substantive allegation in the Steele dossier reporting.”

Howell argued Wednesday that Trump’s order was “different from almost any other executive order I’ve seen.” Mizelle contended that Trump was exercising “clear Article II constitutional authority” and said that it is within the power of the president to determine if certain groups are “not trustworthy with the secrets of the United States.”

Then-FBI Director James Comey also fought to include information from Steele’s dossier in the January 2017 intelligence community assessment on alleged Russian election meddling. Comey also briefed then-President-elect Trump about the dossier’s most salacious allegations during a meeting at Trump Tower in January 2017.

An investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller “did not establish” any criminal Trump-Russia collusion. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found huge flaws with the FBI’s investigation, criticizing the “central and essential” role of the dossier in the FBI’s politicized FISA surveillance of former Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

After the 2016 election, Elias went on to serve also as the general counsel for now-former Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed 2020 presidential bid. Perkins Coie announced in 2021 Elias and others were leaving to form Elias Law Group.

Durham’s indictment against Sussmann centered on a September 2016 meeting with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in which Sussmann passed along debunked allegations claiming there was a secret back channel between Russia’s Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization. Durham alleged that Sussmann told Baker he was not working for any specific client, but Durham said Sussmann was secretly doing the bidding of Clinton’s presidential campaign. Durham said Elias was also involved in pushing the false Alfa Bank claims. Sussmann was acquitted after a two-week trial by a jury in the nation’s capital in 2022.

The judge said Wednesday that it “sends chills down my spine” that Trump could issue an executive order like this if he believes an entity is not operating in the interests of the United States, calling it “a pretty extraordinary power.” The DOJ repeated that “it is 100% our position that the president has that right and that power” and added his stance that Trump’s power in this regard cannot be challenged.

Howell asked if Trump could issue a similar executive order against Williams & Connolly if Trump got “annoyed” with them for representing Perkins Coie, and Mizelle repeated that “I believe this is really about national security.”

The lawyer for Perkins Coie argued that “this executive order takes a wrecking ball to the rule of law.” Butswinkas said that the DOJ seemed to be discussing “a different Constitution than the one I’m familiar with” and called the DOJ’s actions “all quintessential viewpoint discrimination.” 

Butswinkas lamented that Trump’s executive order could be “life-threatening for the law firm” and, if allowed to proceed, “it will spell the end of the law firm.”

The lawyer for Perkins Coie argued that “the harm arises from having a separate set of procedures that only apply to one law firm” and said that every one of the top fifteen practices at Perkins Coie has clients with government contracts, and that the firm does work in front of more than 90 agencies. The lawyer contended that the executive order was causing “interference” with contractors choosing Perkins Coie, saying that it was “incredibly damaging and threatening and already caused harm” and that the firm “lost clients each day since the executive order was issued.” The lawyer said that Perkins Coie would experience "colossal harm” if its attorneys were not allowed into courthouses and federal buildings.

Mizelle countered that “the harm” that Perkins Coie was claiming was “a lot more speculative” than the firm said. The DOJ lawyer said that “no negative action has been taken against them” and said that “the ghosts are not real” and “the boogeymen are not real” in downplaying Perkins Coie’s concerns, saying that “none of those what-ifs” that the law firm brought up have happened yet.

Butswinkas retorted, “These are not ghosts. These are real things that are happening to that law firm.”

Whether ghosts or not, at least for the time being it appears that Perkins Coie will be spared the impact of much of Trump’s executive order for the time being.