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Apr 24, 2025 10:27 PM EDT, Thu

Judge Howell slams DOJ in Perkins Coie lawsuit over ‘temper tantrum’

President Donald Trump’s efforts to target law firms he doesn’t like aren’t faring well in court.

April 23, 2025, 5:07 PM EDT By Jordan Rubin

The law firms that haven’t caved to President Donald Trump’s revenge orders have been doing well in court. One of the latest examples came Wednesday in a hearing involving the Perkins Coie firm, at which a federal judge grilled an administration lawyer.

NBC News reported that U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell criticized Justice Department attorney Richard Lawson’s lack of basic information, as well as what she called the DOJ’s “temper tantrum.”

Howell previously granted a temporary restraining order to Perkins Coie, which had argued that Trump’s executive order targeting the firm was “unprecedented” and “unconstitutional from top to bottom.” The president’s March 6 order cited the firm’s “dishonest and dangerous activity” stemming from its association with figures loathed in Trump Party circles: Hillary Clinton and George Soros. The order sought to restrict the firm’s access to federal buildings and instructed agencies not to engage with its personnel and to terminate contracts held by firm clients.

Howell had previously told government officials to send a memo to agencies telling them about the restraining order. But she didn’t like how they went about it in calling her order “erroneous.” NBC News reported that the Obama appointee said that it struck her as a “temper tantrum” worthy of a 3-year-old, not the Justice Department.

Of course, that’s not what any lawyer want to hear about a client. But beyond the theatrics, the bigger problem is that Howell and other judges are swiftly ruling against the underlying orders, thus far backing the wisdom of the firms that have chosen to fight back.

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