A federal judge issued a scathing ruling against the Trump administration for an executive order issued against the Perkins Coie law firm that she claimed violated the Constitution in numerous ways.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said Friday that the order violated three separate amendments to the Constitution and ordered that it be permanently blocked.
‘Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power.’
Perkins Coie is known for its involvement in the Trump dossier debacle, where dubious documents were collected in an attempt to substantiate accusations against President Donald Trump that he was colluding with the Russian government.
Howell said in the 102-page ruling that Trump’s order against the firm violated the First, Fifth, and Sixth amendments.
“Using the powers of the federal government to target lawyers for their representation of clients and avowed progressive employment policies in an overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints, however, is contrary to the Constitution, which requires that the government respond to dissenting or unpopular speech or ideas with ‘tolerance, not coercion,'” she wrote.
She compared Trump to a character from Shakespeare’s play Henry VI, who famously says, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,” and explained that the order was in the same direction as totalitarianism.
“Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power,” she explained.
Howell had previously issued a temporary ruling against parts of the order and criticized the administration for violating the First Amendment.
“Regardless of whether the president dislikes the firm’s clients, dislikes the litigation positions the law firm takes in vigorous representation of those clients, or dislikes the results Perkins Coie achieved for its clients,” Howell wrote, “issuing an executive order targeting the firm based on the president’s dislike of the political positions of the firm’s clients or the firm’s litigation positions is retaliatory and runs head-on into the role of First Amendment protection.”
Howell was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
“I am sure that many in the legal profession are watching in horror at what Perkins Coie is going through here,” Howell said in the previous ruling.
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