Judge To Trump: No You Can’t Just Kill All The Lawyers You Don’t Like

In an unprecedented 102-page ruling that methodically dismantles the Trump administration’s executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie, Judge Beryl Howell has issued a permanent injunction that goes far beyond her initial temporary restraining order. The ruling represents a stark rebuke of what the court calls an “overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints” through the targeted destruction of a law firm that represented Trump’s political opponents.

The ruling excoriates not just the Trump administration’s unconstitutional overreach, but also delivers a withering critique of the law firms that chose to capitulate to similar threats. Drawing on sources from Shakespeare to the Founding Fathers, Judge Howell frames the order as part of a dangerous historical pattern of would-be autocrats targeting lawyers as a path to power:

No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HENRY VI, PART 2, act 4, sc. 2, l. 75. When Shakespeare’s character, a rebel leader intent on becoming king, see id. l. 74, hears this suggestion, he promptly incorporates this tactic as part of his plan to assume power, leading in the same scene to the rebel leader demanding “[a]way with him,” referring to an educated clerk, who “can make obligations and write court hand,” id. l. 90, 106. Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power. See Walters v. Nat’l Ass’n of Radiation Survivors, 473 U.S. 305, 371 n.24 (1985) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (explaining the import of the same Shakespearean statement to be “that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government”).

The importance of independent lawyers to ensuring the American judicial system’s fair and impartial administration of justice has been recognized in this country since its founding era. In 1770, John Adams made the singularly unpopular decision to represent eight British soldiers charged with murder for their roles in the Boston Massacre and “claimed later to have suffered the loss of more than half his practice.” DAVID MCCULLOUGH, JOHN ADAMS 68 (2001). “I had no hesitation,” he explained, since “Council ought to be the very last thing that an accused Person should want in a free Country,” and “the Bar ought . . . to be independent and impartial at all Times And in every Circumstance.” 3 DIARY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN ADAMS 293 (L.H. Butterfield et al. eds., 1961). When the Bill of Rights was ratified, these principles were codified into the Constitution: The Sixth Amendment secured the right, in “all criminal prosecutions,” to “have the Assistance of Counsel for . . . defence,” U.S. CONST. amend. VI, and the Fifth Amendment protected “the right to the aid of counsel when desired and provided by the party asserting the right,” Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 68 (1932). This value placed on the role of lawyers caught the attention of Alexis de Tocqueville, who in reflecting on his travels throughout the early United States in 1831 and 1832, insightfully remarked that “the authority . . . intrusted to members of the legal profession . . . is the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy.” ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 301 (Henry Reeve trans., 2002) (1835).

Quoting Shakespeare, John Adams, and Alexis de Tocqueville all in the first two paragraphs? You can tell we’re in for quite a ride. But the key point is this: Trump is acting like a dictator, doing things he cannot be allowed to do:

The instant case presents an unprecedented attack on these foundational principles. On March 6, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14230 (“EO 14230”), 90 Fed. Reg. 11781 (Mar. 11, 2025), entitled “Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP.” By its terms, this Order stigmatizes and penalizes a particular law firm and its employees—from its partners to its associate attorneys, secretaries, and mailroom attendants—due to the Firm’s representation, both in the past and currently, of clients pursuing claims and taking positions with which the current President disagrees, as well as the Firm’s own speech. In a cringe-worthy twist on the theatrical phrase “Let’s kill all the lawyers,” EO 14230 takes the approach of “Let’s kill the lawyers I don’t like,” sending the clear message: lawyers must stick to the party line, or else.

At the end of this paragraph, there’s a footnote which calls out those law firms that capitulated, noting that this should scare clients away from using those law firms, as you can never believe that they’re not just aligned with the government’s interests over a client’s.

This message has been heard and heeded by some targeted law firms, as reflected in their choice, after reportedly direct dealings with the current White House, to agree to demand terms, perhaps viewing this choice as the best alternative for their clients and employees. Yet, some clients may harbor reservations about the implications of such deals for the vigorous and zealous representation to which they are entitled from ethically responsible counsel, since at least the publicized deal terms appear only to forestall, rather than eliminate, the threat of being targeted in an Executive Order. As amici former and current general counsel caution, a “fundamental premise of the rule of law” is that “when parties challenge the government, their lawyers ‘oppose[] the designated representatives of the State,’ and ‘[t]he system assumes that adversarial testing will ultimately advance the public interest in truth and fairness.’ This safeguard against government overreach fails when attorneys cannot ‘advanc[e] the undivided interests of [their] client[s]’ for fear of reprisal from the government.”…

Only when lawyers make the choice to challenge rather than back down when confronted with government action raising non-trivial constitutional issues can a case be brought to court for judicial review of the legal merits, as was done in this case by plaintiff Perkins Coie LLP, plaintiff’s counsel Williams & Connolly, and the lawyers, firms, organizations, and individuals who submitted amicus briefs in this case. As one amicus aptly put it, “[o]ur judicial system is under serious threat when determining whether to file an Amicus Curiae brief could be a career ending decision. But, when lawyers are apprehensive about retribution simply for filing a brief adverse to the government, there is no other choice but to do so.”…. If the founding history of this country is any guide, those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by so doing, served to promote the rule of law, will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written.

This echoes what we wrote back in March. When the history books are written on this, those who capitulated will be remembered as pathetic cowards lacking the backbone to stand up for themselves against injustice.

Judge Howell then calls out just how unconstitutional this is, rightly pointing to two free speech cases that MAGA celebrated in the past two years when they came down: 303 Creative (the case about the fictional homophobic website designer) and Vullo (in which an elected official tried to coerce companies who worked with the NRA to stop doing business with them).

Using the powers of the federal government to target lawyers for their representation of clients and avowed progressive employment policies in an overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints, however, is contrary to the Constitution, which requires that the government respond to dissenting or unpopular speech or ideas with “tolerance, not coercion.” 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570, 603 (2023). The Supreme Court has long made clear that “no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics . . . or other matters of opinion.” W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943). Simply put, government officials “cannot . . . use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.” NRA v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 188 (2024).

This is smart, even if the MAGA faithful don’t care about their own hypocrisy. Judge Howell is putting an exclamation point on that hypocrisy by directly calling out how their stance is a complete 180 to what they claimed to celebrate from the Supreme Court in the last two years.

She’s both calling out their total lack of principles and signaling to the same Supreme Court that made those rulings that, to be consistent with them, they should come to the same conclusion: that these executive orders are both unconstitutional and unconscionable.

I won’t go through all the reasoning (it is a 102-page order, after all), I will call out a few key bits, starting with the Court calling out just how incompetent the DOJ’s filings in the case were:

Neither the government’s motion to dismiss itself or its proposed order cites to any procedural rule as the basis for the requested dismissal, see Gov’t’s MTD; id., Proposed Order, ECF No. 43-2), and the government’s memorandum in support likewise contains no clear statement of the procedural rules relied upon as to each claim, leaving the legal bases for the motion to the Court to discern from vague headings used in the government’s memorandum or to tease out of the text of the same document, despite the critical differences in applicable standards depending on which rule is relied upon. Regardless of whether this reflects a strategy to “disguise[] the nature of its motion,” Pl.’s Opp’n at 5, plaintiff requests denial of any intended government cross-motion for summary judgment “for failure to comply with [D.D.C.] Local Rule 7(h)(1), which requires a statement of undisputed material facts supported by record citations,”

This is notable, if only to call out how almost all of the lawyers at the DOJ who know what the fuck they’re doing in court are either gone or sidelined from these cases. The lawyering from those left over is incompetent, and judges recognize that.

Also called out: the idea that the President can just claim something is “in the national interest” and that makes it unreviewable by a court. Not how it works:

When the government does not even claim that a general policy about security clearances was motivated by national security, judicial review of that policy could not threaten unduly entangling the judicial branch in questions of national security. Instead, the EO invokes “the national interest,” id., a concept seemingly far broader and more nebulous than threats to national security. When asked, government counsel was unable to define what exactly falls within the scope of “the national interest,” see, e.g., TRO Hr’g Tr. at 52:21-53:4, and the scope appears to be essentially unlimited, since disagreements about the benefits of diversity programs in hiring apparently qualify, see EO 14230 § 1, 90 Fed. Reg. at 11781 (stating that plaintiff’s alleged discrimination “represents good cause to conclude that they [should not] have access to our Nation’s secrets”); Gov’t’s Reply at 1 (complaining about plaintiff’s “aggressive DEI practices”). Finding any such government actions judicially unreviewable simply because the Executive branch invoked “the national interest” would represent a breathtaking expansion of executive power at the expense of the constitutionally mandated role of the judicial branch and the concomitant safeguards for the individual rights of Americans.

Judge Howell is also paying attention to Trump bragging about how much money he’s getting from capitulating law firms for doing nothing wrong:

President Trump referred to these deals being cut with law firms, in a speech on April 8, 2025, stating: “Have you noticed that lots of law firms have been signing up with Trump? $100 million, another $100 million, for damages that they’ve done. But they give you $100 million and then they announce, ‘We have done nothing wrong.’ And I agree, they’ve done nothing wrong. But what the hell, they’ve given me a lot of money considering they’ve done nothing wrong. And we’ll use some of those people, some of those great firms, and they are great firms too—they just had a bad moment.”….

The end result of all this is that a permanent injunction has been issued, which Trump is likely to appeal.

The U.S. Constitution affords critical protections against Executive action like that ordered in EO 14230. Government officials, including the President, may not “subject[] individuals to ‘retaliatory actions’ after the fact for having engaged in protected speech.” Hous. Cmty. Coll. Sys., 595 U.S. at 474 (quoting Nieves, 587 U.S. at 398). They may neither “use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression,” Vullo, 602 U.S. at 188, nor engage in the use of “purely personal and arbitrary power,” Yick Wo, 118 U.S. at 370. In this case, these and other foundational protections were violated by EO 14230. On that basis, this Court has found that EO 14230 violates the Constitution and is thus null and void. For the reasons explained, plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment and declaratory and permanent injunctive relief on Counts II through IX of the Amended Complaint. The government’s motion to dismiss is denied.

What makes this ruling particularly powerful is how Judge Howell deliberately frames it within recent Supreme Court precedents that Trump’s own supporters celebrated. By name-checking both 303 Creative and Vullo, the court makes it clear that those who cheered decisions protecting a website designer’s right to discriminate or defended the NRA against government coercion must now reckon with those same principles protecting law firms from presidential retaliation. While many will fall back on cognitive dissonance to ignore the contradictions, it will hopefully work on some (especially those at the Supreme Court).

The ruling also exposes, yet again, the institutional decay within the Justice Department, where competent career attorneys appear to have been sidelined in favor of those willing to advance legally incoherent arguments. When government lawyers can’t even properly cite procedural rules or define what constitutes “the national interest,” it signals a department that has abandoned legal principle for political compliance.

While this ruling alone won’t stop Trump’s campaign of lawless retribution, it creates a crucial judicial record documenting Trump’s continued weaponization of executive power to destroy those who challenge him. Judge Howell’s opinion doesn’t just reject Trump’s order — it methodically exposes it as part of a deliberate strategy to dismantle the rule of law itself. The question now is whether other courts — and the legal profession as a whole — will demonstrate similar courage in defending constitutional principles against authoritarian assault.