The Trump administration on Monday abandoned its attempts to impose potentially crippling executive orders against law firms that refused to capitulate to the president, walking away from its appeal of victories the firms had won against the White House.
With a brief due this week, Justice Department lawyers told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that they were no longer interested in pursuing the cases and were voluntarily asking the court to dismiss them.
The decision is the White House’s most significant acknowledgment that the executive orders cannot be successfully defended in court. The move is particularly striking given that some firms opted to reach deals in a bid to head off executive orders that President Donald Trump’s Justice Department said it would no longer stand behind.
The battle over the executive orders had roiled the legal establishment and led many firms to submit to Trump rather than face the existential threat his directives represented. The orders barred the firms from government business and suggested that their clients could lose government contracts, spurring widespread panic in the legal profession.
Four firms — Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey — fought the orders, quickly receiving favorable rulings from district court judges. Nine others struck deals with Trump, most notably Paul Weiss, drawing sharp criticism.
The firms contesting the orders welcomed the administration’s request for dismissal.
Jenner & Block said that its partners were “proud to have stood firm on behalf of its clients.” WilmerHale added that its challenge was based in part on “defending the rule of law.”
Susman Godfrey, in its statement, gestured at the larger implication of the orders. “We fought for ourselves, but we fought for bigger things, too,” it said. “For a Constitution that protects our freedoms; for a legal profession that depends on equal justice under the law; and for the people across this country who refuse to back down in the face of an administration that seeks to silence and intimidate them.”
The Justice Department’s surrender is the latest example of the White House pushing the limits of the law, benefiting from the lag time between the use of its power and the courts’ response. In some instances, even when the administration has walked away from its initial legal position, it has still been able to impose its will.