Marc Elias: The law firms that stood up against Donald Trump's threats won.

[bigtree]

Marc E. Elias @marceelias 2h
Today was an important day for the opposition movement. The law firms that stood up against Donald Trump threats won.

Those that capitulated and collaborated with Trump will need to explain to future generations why, when democracy was at stake, they were such cowards.

Link to tweet

Report: In win for rule of law, DOJ drops defense of Trump orders targeting prominent law firms

The DOJ it set to drop its appeals of four lower court rulings that found Trump’s executive orders sanctioning Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie* and Susman Godfrey were unlawful and issued specifically to punish the firms for exercising their constitutional rights.

The DOJ dropping its defense of the orders represents a major win for the rule of law. By targeting firms based on the clients they represented, Trump’s orders represented a direct assault on the country’s adversarial system of justice.

Some law firms — including Paul, Weiss — folded in the face of the orders and pledged tens of millions of dollars worth of pro bono legal work for causes favored by the White House in order to get Trump’s sanctions lifted.

Other firms successfully sued. The first to do so was Perkins Coie, which argued that it was being illegally targeted because it challenged the Trump campaign’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and for its work on voting rights cases.

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/justice-department-drop-defense-trump-executive-orders-law-firms/

[Cheezoholic]

1. 100%! n/t

[leftstreet]

2. DURec

[Klarkashton]

3. Like he said, who would use a spineless law firm

That capitulated to that bastard. Can't be trusted.

[mzmolly]

4. Elias is an American

hero.

[Cha]

5. I'm So Happy For This!

[mzmolly]

6. Me too. It's about time! :)

[Cha]

7. At Least We Still Have

the Courts & Judges for Some Rule of Law.

I Hope This Inspires and Encourages More People to Stand Up and Fight For It!

mzmoilly

[bigtree]

8. cnn

Trump administration drops suits against law firms with ties to Democrats and other Trump foes

Despite Trump’s dislike for certain lawyers who had opposed him at the firms and his attempts to use executive orders against them, the firms – Perkins Coie, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey – had each been protected by federal judges in Washington, DC, who ruled against the administration last year.

Each of the firms, Trump said, had employed lawyers who had investigated or opposed him personally. He attempted to use the powers of the presidency to deprive the firms’ lawyers of access to federal buildings, secured classified information and meetings with federal agencies – all mainstays of Washington-based legal work.

The firms were notified by the administration this weekend that it was dropping its appeals, according to a source familiar with the decision, and the Justice Department notified the appeals court on Monday night that it and the firms wanted to have the cases dismissed. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

Each of the four law firms in turn cheered their win, while criticizing the Trump administration attempting to chill their clients’ choices of who would represent challenges in court and behind the scenes opposite the federal government.

The firm had employed members of the former special counsel office of Robert Mueller that investigated Trump after the 2016 election. “As we said from the outset, our challenge to the unlawful Executive Order was about defending our clients’ constitutional right to retain the counsel of their choosing and defending the rule of law. We are pleased these foundational principles were vindicated,” Wilmer Hale’s statement said.

“No president is permitted to broadly target or punish groups without appropriate due process, even under the guise of national security,” Zaid’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement on Monday.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/02/politics/trump-administration-drops-suits-against-law-firms