A federal judge seems to tend on Wednesday to enter a permanent decision which prohibits Trump’s government from applying executive orders targeting the Perkins Coie law firm, after repeatedly pressing a government lawyer about whether the effort to allow President Donald Trump to target the legal community that violates the constitution.
The US District Judge Beryl Howell, who was criticized by Trump on social media, previously on his assignment of this case, suggested repeatedly in the trial that the government’s efforts to target the legal firms that had represented or employed Trump’s political opponents echoing the oppression of McCarthyism and “red fear” in American history.
Trump’s executive orders, quoting Perkins Coie representatives from the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign, tried to strip security permits from the company layer, almost stop transactions with the Federal Government and limit their lawyers from accessing most federal buildings.
Trump has issued a similar executive order targeting four other legal firms, while at least nine legal firms have signed a controversial agreement with the White House, offering millions of dollars in pro Bono work on the causes supported by conservatives to avoid targets.
Howell and three other federal judges who oversee the legal challenges brought by the legal firm targeted by the White House have voiced concerns about the constitutionality of the White House’s actions, and has provided a request from the company to temporarily prohibit administrative from upholding them when the litigation is played.
At the trial on Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Richard Lawson repeatedly tried to maintain executive orders as halal, with the reason that Trump’s view of the company reflects his rights for freedom of speech and that the government has broad flexibility to increase national security concerns about the work of the law firm.
But Howell was very skeptical of the defense and only became more frustrated because Lawson refused to answer direct questions about the purpose of the executive order.
President Donald Trump spoke to reporters at the White House in Washington, April 23, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
“The goal is not to force the perkins to kneel?” Howell asked.
“I didn’t see it like that,” Lawson answered.
At one point in the trial, Judge Howell punished the government to a memo sent to a government institution after a temporary detention order which included “additional language” which stated that the government took the position of executive order Trump legitimately and they believed the Tro “was wrong.”
“I will be honest- it surprised me as a kind of anger by the Department of Justice and OMB,” Howell said, referring to the Management and Budget Office. “A three -year -old child deserves – not the Department of Justice and OMB.”
Dane Butswinkas, a lawyer for Perkins Coie, argues that executive orders clearly replied to Perkins Coie, and that Trump’s government had failed to show how the move protected national security.
“This is exactly the type of behavior that is prohibited by the constitution,” Butswinkas said, calling the command “total pain.”
Comparing the order with the worst action of the government during red fear, Butswinkas urged Judge Howell to maintain the rule of law by blocking orders so as not to apply.
“Silence and fear are authoritarianism manuals,” Butswinkas said before thanking other law firms, media organizations, and professors who had pushed back the command. “Democracy may bow, it might be bruised, but what is shown 250 years is not damaged.”