Perkins Coie, a powerhouse Democratic law firm that played a key role in commissioning the so-called Steele dossier, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Tuesday after President Trump suspended the security clearances of employees who work at the firm.
Trump’s executive order against Perkins Coie — signed last week — accused the law firm of being “dishonest and dangerous” and also barred its employees from accessing government buildings and directed government agencies to terminate federal contracts with the firm.
The firm accused Trump of signing the order over a political vendetta.
“The Order imposes these punishments as retaliation for the firm’s association with, and representation of, clients that the President perceives as his political opponents,” read the complaint filed by Perkins Coie in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
“The retaliatory aim of the Order is intentionally obvious to the general public and the press because the very goal is to chill future lawyers from representing particular clients,” the suit continued.
Perkins Coie, which is being represented by DC-based firm Williams & Connolly, argues that Trump’s order goes beyond the scope of executive powers.
“There is no enumerated or inherent executive authority from the Constitution to regulate and to sanction lawyers for professional misconduct,” the filing states. “That is not part of the President’s ‘core constitutional power.’”
Perkins Coie describes Trump’s order as an “unconstitutional exercise of judicial authority.”
The law firm further contends that the president violated its First Amendment free speech rights, as well as its Fifth Amendment rights to due process, and has harmed the company by interfering in its ability to represent clients suing the federal government.
“The Order is an affront to the Constitution and our adversarial system of justice. Its plain purpose is to bully those who advocate points of view that the President perceives as adverse to the views of his Administration,” the complaint states.
Perkins Coie, which represented Hillary Clinton during her failed 2016 presidential campaign, retained the services intelligence firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research against Trump in April 2016.
Former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele was subsequently hired by Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump’s overseas business relationships.
The now-debunked Steele dossier – which was publicized days before Trump’s January 2017 inauguration – contained wild allegations that Russian security services possessed salacious videotapes involving Trump and that Russia attempted to promote his presidential prospects.
The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid Perkins Coie nearly $10 million for its services in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
The Federal Election Commission fined the Clinton campaign and the DNC $8,000 and $105,000, respectively, for lying about how they spent money used to fund the discovery of the Steele dossier.
“This egregious activity is part of a pattern,” Trump claimed in his order, arguing that the dossier commissioned by the law firm was “designed to steal an election.”
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