March 26 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has signed a retaliatory executive order targeting another law firm connected to lawyers who investigated him.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has used his executive powers to punish law firms connected to Democrats and his previous criminal investigations as part of his crack down on the “weaponization of government.”
On Tuesday, he signed an executive order stripping security clearances and restricting government building access for lawyers of Jenner & Block, a Chicago-headquartered firm that once employed Andrew Weissmann, who was involved in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 federal election.
“He’s a bad guy,” Trump said Tuesday before signing the order, referring to Weissmann.
A fact sheet from the White House described Weissmann’s career as being “rooted in weaponized government and abuse of power,” without offering proof.
Weismann worked with Mueller on his investigation into Trump and potential connections with Russian interference in the 2016 election, with their report published in 2019. Afterward, he was hired by his old law firm, Jenner & Block, but left again in 2021, The New York Times reported. He had been a partner with the firm from 2006-2011 and is a former prosecutor in the Justice Department.
The executive order additionally accuses Jenner & Block of conducting partisan “lawfare.” It also called out its support of civil rights for the LGBTQ+ community, characterizing its stance as supporting “attacks against women and children based on a refusal to accept the biological reality of sex.”
UPI has contacted Jenner & Block for comment.
Trump has attacked a handful of law firms with executive orders since late last month over their actions and associations with attorneys he feels have unjustly wronged him while performing their professions.
The move has attracted criticism from legal professionals as an attempt to stifle dissent.
The American Civil Liberties Union described the executive orders targeting law firms as part of a larger Trump attack on free society.
“Not long ago, no American would have entertained the notion that a U.S. president would issue fiats, left and right, to quell disfavored viewpoints — this is despotic, unpresidential behavior,” Cecillia Wang, National Legal Director at the ACLU, said in a statement Tuesday.
“The president is carrying out a fear campaign, but good lawyers are brave. We will continue to provide zealous and ethical representation to our clients, and we will speak our minds.”
Two weeks ago, a federal judge barred the Trump administration from enforcing parts of a similar executive order the president signed early this month targeting Perkins Coie over its work with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election campaign.
On Friday, the White House announced that law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, — the target of one of the president’s executive orders — had made a deal with the Trump administration to “engage in a remarkable change of course” including a number of policy changes to better align with the Trump administration’s expectations.
