Trump Targets WilmerHale in Escalating Feud with Legal Establishment: Security Clearances Suspended, Contracts Cut:

Former President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday aimed at law firms with negative relations to him, including Trump’s former political enemy Hillary Clinton, marking the second phase of his fight against these law firms. This action is to further his obstruction of justice against those investigating into his actions.

Trump is terminating security clearances for certain WilmerHale employees along with contracting other employees of the law firm. The president has also previously made orders concerning the other law firms charged to defend him, which included Jenner and Block, Perkins Coie, and even Covington & Burling. Although, the directive given to Covington was not as stringent as the others and only affected a single attorney’s security clearance. Trump reversed his earlier order on Paul Weiss once the firm decided to help his administration by agreeing to give $40 million in pro bono legal support for the duration of his presidency.

Trump’s policies have always favored his supporters, and, in turn, harmed his enemies. WilmerHale incited attention because they hired Robert Mueller, the FBI director who previously led the special counsel investigating Trump during his presidency, associated with Russian meddling with the elections in 2016. After the probe, Mueller transitioned to being a WilmerHale partner, only to resign from the firm in 2021.

As noted in the Executive Order pertaining fact sheet from the White House, a WilmerHale representative said, ”Mueller and two of his colleagues were ‘rewarded’ by being brought to the firm after they used the power of the Federal government to conduct a clearly biased ‘investigation’ against the President and others.”

A spokesperson for WilmerHale said the firm had been following the new executive order and said it was modeled after the order issued against Perkins Coie which a judge has put on hold for now.

In a bid to explain their unparalleled presence, the firm released the following statement, “Our firm has a long-standing reputation of providing services to virtually everyone, including those wishing to sue the administrations of both political parties."

A comment from Mueller was not available. In a statement from WilmerHale, a spokesperson claimed, "From his service as a Marine Corps officer during the Vietnam War to the FBI in the post 9/11 terror attack era, Mueller certainly had a long and distinguished career in public service."

Last week, the scrutiny of Trump regarding the American legal system escalated when he ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to “review conduct” of lawyers and firms that engage in “frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation” against the US. He said Bondi’s supervision of litigation for the government should begin from the last 8 years back from the start of his first term in office.

There has been growing criticism of the president within US legal academia, primarily 80 deans of law schools which released this week letters that “condemn any government targeting of lawyers and law firms based purely, or in part, on the identity of their clients or for being overly protective and partisan and legal as British and American politics has come to use the term.”

Apart from targeting law firms, Trump has extended his attacks on the judiciary as well. On the 18th of March, he declared that he will pursue the impeachment of any judge that opposes his decision to immediately deport claimed members of a Venezuelan gang. This argument was countered by Chief Justice John Roberts who issued his own rare public statement.