WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after abandoning its efforts to enforce executive orders that targeted some of the world’s most elite law firms, President Donald Trump’s administration abruptly reversed course on Tuesday and said it would proceed with the court fight.
The unexplained about-face represents the latest development in a yearlong effort by the Republican administration to impose sanctions against major law firms whose attorneys had done legal work Trump opposed or had been associated with prosecutors who investigated him.
Judges who received challenges to the executive orders from targeted firms uniformly ruled against the government, prompting an appeal from the Justice Department. In a brief filing Monday in the federal appeals court in Washington, the Justice Department withdrew its appeal, ending efforts to enforce executive orders against the firms of Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey and WilmerHale.
Then, on Tuesday, the Justice Department, without any explanation, submitted a new court filing saying that it was withdrawing its earlier one and was no longer giving up its appeal. It said that because the appeals court had not yet granted its motion to dismiss, the firms were not harmed by the department’s change in position. The department said that it had advised lawyers for the four firms of its change in position and that they objected.
The White House referred questions about the change in position to the Justice Department, where a spokesperson declined to comment.
In a statement, Perkins Coie said the Justice Department had “offered no explanation to either the parties or the court for its reversal.”
“We remain committed to defending our firm, our people, and our clients,” the firm said.
Susman Godfrey said in a statement that it “will defend itself and the rule of law — without equivocation.”
The succession of edicts, part of a broader Trump administration campaign of retribution, ordered that the security clearances of attorneys at the targeted firms be suspended, that federal contracts be terminated and that their employees be barred from federal buildings. The punished firms have called the orders an unconstitutional affront to the legal system.
Other major firms sought to avert orders by preemptively reaching settlements that required them, among other things, to collectively dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars in free legal services in support of causes the Trump administration says it supports.
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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.