(April 23, 2025, 9:00 PM EDT) -- Two D.C. federal judges on Wednesday expressed skepticism toward the Trump administration's justifications for targeting WilmerHale and Perkins Coie LLP with executive orders, with one judge invoking a comparison to the Red Scare.
The BigLaw firms appeared in packed courtrooms in Washington, D.C., to seek permanent injunctions against the orders in their entirety, while the U.S. Department of Justice is vying to dismiss the firms' suits.
Both U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell, who is presiding over the Perkins Coie litigation, and U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, who was assigned to the WilmerHale suit, have issued temporary restraining orders staving off much of President Donald Trump's directives. But the judges have, for now, left in place provisions stripping Perkins Coie and WilmerHale lawyers of security clearances "pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest."
Judge Howell seemed inclined to make her temporary order permanent during a hearing Wednesday morning as she sharply questioned the Justice Department's Richard Lawson for more than two hours. While Lawson insisted that any lawyer with a suspended clearance would get an "individualized" review, Judge Howell said that such review usually happens before suspension.
The judge pointed to a declaration submitted by Perkins Coie from a former longtime Department of Defense official who said the blanket suspension of lawyers' clearances "harkens back to the repudiated and discredited programs that existed before Greene v. McElroy, including during the Red Scare."
"Is this a throwback to the McCarthy era, the Red Scare era?" Judge Howell inquired.
Lawson, who is defending the Trump administration against both suits, argued that the president's ability to trust a person is relevant when it comes to national security.
"I don't view this as punishment," he said. "It certainly would be an impediment."
But Williams & Connolly LLP partner Dane H. Butswinkas, who represents Perkins Coie, countered that the national security justifications are a "complete ruse." If the administration were truly concerned about national security, its settlements with other firms would include some remedial actions to resolve those concerns, Butswinkas said.
Judge Howell indicated those deals would be relevant context for her ruling as she quizzed Lawson on other firms' agreements to avert or rescind orders against them. Lawson, however, said he didn't know more about those agreements other than what has already been made public — including whether the deals were memorialized in writing.
"So we just have to wait for the inevitable FOIA lawsuits," Judge Howell said, predicting that Freedom of Information Act lawsuits will seek to obtain the details of those agreements.
In addition to Perkins Coie and WilmerHale, Trump inked orders against Jenner & Block LLP, Susman Godfrey LLP and Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP. The orders suspended firm staff's security clearances, cut contracts between the firms and government, and restricted firm personnel from entering federal buildings.
Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey have also taken the issue to court and obtained temporary restraining orders. Paul Weiss, meanwhile, struck a deal with the administration last month to get an order against it rescinded. Several other firms reached agreements with Trump to dodge impending orders targeting them.
WilmerHale's lawyer Paul D. Clement of Clement & Murphy PLLC said Wednesday that the orders "are a direct and lethal threat to an independent bar." If the sanctions were directed by Congress rather than by the president, "it would be as plain a bill of attainder as we've seen in this country for decades and decades," he said.
"The signal it sends to the whole bar is, 'Watch out,'" Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general, said.
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