"Though this adage is commonplace, and the tactic overused, it is called to mind by defendants’ pending motion to disqualify this Court: “When you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger.” Defendants filed this motion less than two weeks after this Court issued a temporary restraining order barring defendants from enforcing against plaintiff Perkins Coie LLP three of the five sections of Executive Order 14230 (“EO 14230”), issued by President Donald J. Trump on March 6, 2025, 90 Fed. Reg. 11781 (Mar. 11, 2025), targeting the law firm with punitive measures due to the law firm’s representation of clients whom the President dislikes or who sought relief through litigation that the President opposes.
When the U.S. Department of Justice engages in this rhetorical strategy of ad hominem attack, the stakes become much larger than only the reputation of the targeted federal judge. This strategy is designed to impugn the integrity of the federal judicial system and blame any loss on the decision-maker rather than fallacies in the substantive legal arguments presented."
Memorandum opinon: Judge Howell denies DOJ motion to disqualify
A federal judge in Washington on Wednesday rejected the Justice Department’s move to disqualify her from a suit over President Donald Trump’s executive order against law firm Perkins Coie.
Judge Beryl Howell slammed DOJ for making “ad hominem attacks” against her in a effort to boot her from the case. Howell on March 12 temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the order, which threatened government contracts for Perkins Coie clients and banned firm employees from accessing federal buildings, citing the firm’s work for Democratic opponents in previous elections.
“This strategy is designed to impugn the integrity of the federal judicial system and blame any loss on the decision-maker rather than fallacies in the substantive legal arguments presented,” Howell said.
DOJ lawyers argued Howell is biased against the administration, pointing to comments at a 2023 event in which she suggested Trump is an authoritarian. They also took aim at Howell’s “condescending” assertion in a hearing earlier this month that Trump has a “bee in his bonnet” about Fusion GPS, a Washington intelligence firm retained by a former Perkins Coie partner to conduct opposition research on Trump for his client, the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign.
“This court has repeatedly demonstrated partiality against and animus towards the president,” Chad Mizelle, acting associate attorney general, and Richard Lawson, a deputy US associate attorney general, said in a March 21 motion to disqualify Howell.
Perkins Coie is the among four major law firms that have been targeted directly by Trump over ties to his perceived enemies. The president on Tuesday issued a new order against Jenner & Block, directing agencies to restrict firm employees from accessing US buildings, strip lawyers’ security clearances, and investigate diversity hiring practices. He also instructed agencies to terminate government contracts with Jenner clients.
Perkins Coie detailed the harm caused to the firm by Trump’s order against it in court filings in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The firm said it lost significant business from longtime clients, such as a “major government contractor that has been a firm client for over 35 years,” in the six days after Trump issued the order.
“The parties will have the opportunity to present relevant evidence and legal arguments, which will receive full, fair, and impartial consideration, as does every case before this court,” Howell said in the Wednesday ruling.
Former Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) in Dec. 2023 requested that Howell be investigated for her comments a month earlier at an event hosted by the Women’s White Collar Defense Association. Howell, who was accepting an award from the group, said she and her colleagues “regularly see the impact of big lies” in hearing criminal cases related to the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol. She described “a very surprising and downright troubling moment where the importance of facts is dismissed, or ignored.”
Stefanik’s complaint, filed with the Judicial Council of the DC Circuit, appears to be still pending.
The case is: Perkins Coie v. U.S. Department of Justice, D.D.C., 1:25-cv-00716, 3/26/25
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