{"id":229,"date":"2026-05-14T22:07:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=229"},"modified":"2026-05-14T22:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:07:12","slug":"appeals-court-shows-some-skepticism-of-trumps-effort-to-punish-law-firms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=229","title":{"rendered":"Appeals court shows some skepticism of Trump\u2019s effort to punish law firms"},"content":{"rendered":"

A panel of judges pressed a Justice Department lawyer about the president\u2019s sanctions, meant to target firms that raised his ire.<\/strong><\/p>

Read more JD Vance praises Sen. Susan Collins, a GOP moderate and occasional Trump foe<\/a><\/p>\n

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President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before leaving for Beijing on Tuesday. (Manuel Balce Ceneta\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

A federal appeals panel <\/b>in D.C. expressed some skepticism Thursday about President Donald Trump\u2019s effort to punish prominent law firms<\/a>, pressing a Justice Department lawyer about sanctions that have been blocked<\/a> by lower courts.<\/p>\n

Abhishek Kambli, the Justice Department lawyer, defended Trump\u2019s actions and said the lower courts had overstepped in blocking the punishments. Paul D. Clement, an attorney representing law firms challenging the sanctions, sought to keep the punishments halted, saying they \u201cstrike at the heart of the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump took aim last year<\/a> at several law firms that had hired his perceived foes or taken on cases he disliked, issuing a string of executive orders seeking to strip the businesses of government contracts, revoke their lawyers\u2019 security clearances and block them from accessing federal buildings.<\/p>\n

These orders, along with agreements that several other firms struck with Trump to avoid similar sanctions, ignited immense outrage across the legal profession.<\/p>\n

Four of the firms facing sanctions \u2014 WilmerHale<\/a>, Jenner & Block<\/a>, Perkins Coie<\/a> and Susman Godfrey<\/a> \u2014 filed separate lawsuits challenging the president\u2019s orders, saying they would be catastrophic for their businesses.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s orders focusing on those firms were pulverized, legally speaking, in court. Federal judges blocked the four orders<\/a>, issuing rulings excoriating them as \u201can unprecedented attack,\u201d \u201cunconstitutional,\u201d \u201cmotivated by retaliatory intent\u201d and an attempt \u201cto chill legal representation the administration doesn\u2019t like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s administration then appealed<\/a>, though not without some seeming internal confusion.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department wrote in a March court filing that it wanted to abandon<\/a> the appeals, effectively admitting defeat, since it would have left the orders blocked. The following day, however, the agency abruptly reversed course<\/a>, saying it wanted to continue appealing. The Justice Department did not explain its rationale either time.<\/p>\n

Soon after, the Justice Department argued in court papers that the lower-court decisions should be reversed, writing that its appeals were about district courts \u201cencroaching on the constitutional power of the president.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The law firm Perkins Coie was a target of Trump’s sanctions. (Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

The law firms have continued assailing Trump\u2019s sanctions, saying in court filings this year that they are \u201ca grave abuse of presidential power\u201d and impose \u201cdraconian punishments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s sanctions for some firms and deals with others have roiled the legal profession<\/a> since last year.<\/p>\n

After Trump began targeting firms, one of them \u2014 Paul Weiss \u2014 struck a deal<\/a> with him, pledging $40 million in pro bono legal work. Eight other firms followed suit<\/a>, with increasingly large pledges of work on causes Trump said he supports, including assisting veterans. All told, these firms pledged nearly $1 billion<\/a> in pro bono work.<\/p>\n

Leaders at these firms have defended the agreements as necessary, but some of their employees and many other attorneys across the country excoriated their actions. Some lawyers resigned in protest<\/a> or left firms<\/a> that made deals to join practices<\/a> that were fighting Trump\u2019s orders in court.<\/p>\n

The issue returned to court Thursday morning, when a three-judge panel with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard arguments about these sanctions.<\/p>

Read more Juan Soto returns to lineup for Mets, who also get a positive progress report on Francisco Lindor<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking in front of a crowded sixth-floor courtroom in downtown D.C., Kambli, the deputy associate attorney general, said judges had acted improperly in siding with all four firms challenging Trump\u2019s punishments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe district courts here rushed to judgment on executive orders that they clearly didn\u2019t like the content of, and in the process, granted relief that they were not authorized to do,\u201d said Kambli, who recently announced his plans to leave the Justice Department at the end of the month.<\/p>\n

Much of the oral argument focused on Trump\u2019s attempt to target security clearances held by attorneys at the firms in question. Kambli said that under court precedent, judges could not restore such clearances.<\/p>\n

Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard, both of whom were appointed by President Barack Obama, quizzed Kambli about clearances and when the courts could weigh in on the issue.<\/p>\n

They floated hypotheticals about what would happen if a president blocked clearances based on objections centering on speech, political affiliation, race or religion. Pillard, for instance, asked what would happen if a president said clearances would not be issued to lawyers at firms representing Catholics, Black people or Asian Americans.<\/p>\n

Kambli said a president\u2019s decisions in this area could not be reviewed by the courts. He compared it to a president\u2019s ability to grant clemency, saying that \u201ceven if it\u2019s for improper motives, it is still ultimately unreviewable.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Justice Department has sought to have the executive orders restored in their entirety, the agency has also signaled a willingness to accept a partial victory. In a March filing<\/a>, the department suggested that if certain penalties are deemed lawful, the appeals court could allow some of Trump\u2019s sanctions to take effect while leaving others blocked.<\/p>\n

Clement, who has been representing WilmerHale in its case and was U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush, has sharply pushed back against the idea of separating out parts of the orders. He wrote<\/a> in a March filing that the order targeting WilmerHale \u201cis a single, unified act of impermissible retaliation\u201d and \u201cwas plainly designed to operate as a unified whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

In court Thursday, Clement said the law firms \u201cwere singled out because they represented clients or associated with attorneys who raised the president\u2019s ire.\u201d The orders, he said, were \u201cabout maximizing punishment\u201d for the firms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is as if they looked around and said, \u2018All right, law firms don\u2019t have that many touch points with the federal government, there\u2019s not that many places we can hurt them,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201c\u2018But let\u2019s hurt them everywhere we can.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Neomi Rao, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, seemed more open to the administration\u2019s case than her colleagues, questioning Clement about clearances and demonstrating unease at the idea of \u201cdistrict courts monitoring [security clearance] revocation decisions in perpetuity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appeals court panel did not say when it would rule.<\/p>\n

Following the law firm arguments, the panel turned its attention to a Trump executive order aimed at stripping a security clearance from Mark Zaid, an attorney who often represents whistleblowers.<\/p>\n

Zaid\u2019s attorneys have argued in court papers that Trump\u2019s order gave him no way to appeal the decision and immediately blocked him from working on active cases involving classified material.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department said that a lower court, in siding with Zaid<\/a>, had judicially usurped Trump\u2019s ability to determine who can access classified information, creating \u201cserious harms to national security and the President\u2019s constitutional authority as Commander in Chief.\u201d<\/p>

Read more Mapping where the redistricting fight stands and where it\u2019s headed<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An appeals court panel expressed some skepticism about President Donald Trump\u2019s sanctions for law firms, which have been blocked since last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nAppeals court shows some skepticism of Trump\u2019s effort to punish law firms - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=229\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Appeals court shows some skepticism of Trump\u2019s effort to punish law firms - 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