President Donald Trump has suspended the security clearances for a firm that worked for his 2016 election rival, Hillary Clinton.
Why It Matters
Trump has repeatedly blocked security clearances for lawyers who worked for his perceived enemies.
In October 2024, two weeks before the presidential election, NPR catalogued over 100 threats of revenge Trump had made to his political rivals in the two previous years.
In June 2023, for example, he told supporters in New Jersey: “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden and the entire Biden crime family and all others involved with the destruction of our elections, our borders, and our country itself.”
What To Know
On March 6, Trump canceled federal clearance for Perkins Coie law firm employees and ordered federal agencies to cancel contracts with the firm. The effects of the security clearance suspension and whether the firms’ lawyers will be allowed to enter federal buildings are unknown. The suspension may be purely symbolic.
Newsweek reached out to Perkins Coie law firm and Attorney General Pam Bondi via email for comment.
Trump’s order cited the law firm’s links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“The dishonest and dangerous activity of the law firm Perkins Coie LLP (‘Perkins Coie’) has affected this country for decades. Notably, in 2016 while representing failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, which then manufactured a false ‘dossier’ designed to steal an election,” the executive order said.
“This egregious activity is part of a pattern. Perkins Coie has worked with activist donors including George Soros to judicially overturn popular, necessary, and democratically enacted election laws, including those requiring voter identification.
“In one such case, a court was forced to sanction Perkins Coie attorneys for an unethical lack of candor before the court,” the order claims.
President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on March 6, 2025, before signing an executive order terminating the security clearances of those who work at the law firm Perkins Coie. President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on March 6, 2025, before signing an executive order terminating the security clearances of those who work at the law firm Perkins Coie. Alex Wong/Getty Images
Trump also attacked the firm’s diversity hiring practices in the executive order.
“Perkins Coie racially discriminates against its own attorneys and staff, and against applicants,” the order said. “Perkins Coie publicly announced percentage quotas in 2019 for hiring and promotion on the basis of race and other categories prohibited by civil rights laws,” states.
In February, Trump signed an executive order targeting another law firm that assisted special counsel Jack Smith.
Smith had taken two cases against Trump, one for alleged illegal interference in the 2020 election and one for allegedly hoarding presidential records in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Both cases were dropped when Trump was elected president.
On February 25, Trump signed a memo suspending the federal building security clearances of employees at the Covington & Burling law firm in Washington, D.C.
“We’re going to call it the deranged Jack Smith signing, or bill,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in February. “The weaponization of our system by law firms, even pro bono work they’re doing in order to clog up government, stop government. And nobody knows about it better than me and, hopefully, that will never happen again.”
What People Are Saying
A Perkins Coie spokesperson said in a statement: “We have reviewed the Executive Order. It is patently unlawful, and we intend to challenge it.”
What Happens Next
Perkins Coie will likely challenge the order in federal court. As is standard practice, it would likely first seek a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration while a judge considers the merits of the case.
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